


My Love, My Life

by MsCFH



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/F, Family Fluff, Parent Trap AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24786430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsCFH/pseuds/MsCFH
Summary: For the first two years of their lives Catie Stark and Sofia Tyrell grew up like sisters; too young to remember each other when their moms separated.Six years later, they and their mothers find themselves aboard a cruise ship, resulting in slightly different vacation than either Sansa or Margaery had planned.
Relationships: Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 82
Kudos: 189





	1. My Love, My Life

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by ABBA's "My Love, My Life".  
> Itinerary descriptions slightly reworded from ASOIF wiki.
> 
> Big thank you to twentyfivepercent for betaing this for me!!!

**_August 2013_ **

_Margaery watched her; how she sat up in bed, and pulled her hair into a messy bun._

_She loved this sight of her, always had, the lean movement of her muscles, the elegant line of her neck, the openness in which she didn’t bother with covering up, something she only did for her. A confidence she only had around her._

_Margaery lay on her back and had the sheet pressed to her chest. They had not planned for this to happen. They never did. It just happened, beyond their control._

_It wouldn’t take long until that bitter taste, the taste of regret would spread in her mouth, it always did. But not quite yet, not while a pleasurable warmth spread through her body, while there was this subtle sense of soreness between her thighs; not while Sansa didn’t look at her full of regret yet._

_It came the blink of an eye later, once Sansa had stood up from the bed, closing the button of her jeans, looking down at her, with eyes she had never wanted to see that sad._

_Damn it._

_“I can’t keep doing this.”_

_Margaery nodded, sat up and pulled her knees up to her chest._

_They would keep in touch, they had promised. Would find a way to work it out, for the girls sake. Didn’t want the girls to lose each other. Their meetings, putting the girls down for a nap, almost always ended like this. Either they ended up fighting or in bed. Sometimes both. There was no in between._

_“You know Catie keeps waking up and it takes me an hour to calm her down because Sofia isn’t there?”_

_Margaery knew. Sofia was the same._

_“This isn’t working as we hoped,” Margaery conceded quietly. “I am aware.”_

_Least of all for the two of them. Sometimes, on the worse days, Margaery would wake up and cry because they weren’t there._

_Sansa sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her. “I got a job offer. Up North.”_

_She was going to take it. Margaery understood immediately. She didn’t need an explanation, didn’t try to talk her out of it. Space was the only thing that would make things better. Or at least held the potential to. And yet it hurt._

_Because the pain was too much, threatening to swallow her whole, Margaery did the only thing she found herself capable of. She went forward, fell to her knees next to Sansa and pulled her body back with her onto the bed._

_They had spent many nights together saying it would be their last night, the last time, so much that the words had lost meaning. Part of her refused to believe it still._

…

** Day 1 – White Harbour – Embarkation **

_Date: Saturday, May 18_ _ th _ _2019_

_Arrival: 04:30_

_Departure: 22:00 (all on board 21:00)_

_Welcome on board!_

_Enjoy the start of your journey on the eastern shore of the White Knife, in White Harbor._

_Known for its wide straight cobbled streets; sprinkled with bars, restaurants and historical sights the streets invite for a walk around. Typical for the city are houses built of whitewashed stone, with steeply-pitched roofs of dark grey slate._

_The in May 2010 opened Cruise Terminal is expecting to reach the 4 million annual guest threshold for the season 2018/2019._

…

“For the season of 2017-2018, White Harbor expected 2,3 million passengers. The 3-million passenger threshold was reached during the season of 2018-2019. The Royal Targaryen Cruise Line remains the port's largest customer - with 2 million passengers in 2017,“ Sofia read the information of one of the pamphlets she’d collected while they waited in line and looked up to Margaery. “That’s the one we’re going with right? The Targaryen Queen?”

Over three-million passengers a year, spread over eight different cruise lines and almost fifty ships. At a six months season that meant roughly 15 000 people embarking ships from here every day. And yet… of all the damn times, of all the damn ships in the world she’d had to board this one.

“Mama?”

Sofia. Right. Ships. Ship names.

“Sorry, honey. I was distracted. Yes. We’ll be on the Royal Targaryen Queen.”

Not noticing or not bothered by her mother’s taciturnity, Sofia was already back to her pamphlet, soaking up every single word. And Margaery went back to seeing the red hair, five positions ahead of them in the queue. The two heads with red hair. She had not seen her face yet, but didn’t need to be sure it was her. Them.

This wasn’t one of those times where she saw someone in the street that sort of resembled her. This was her. No doubt at all. It was in the way she moved, in the way she had her hair braided, the way her hands, hands that were so very familiar, stroked over the little girl's head.

She should have known. Of course there was no way she _could_ have known, but she _had_ known that this day would come and yet she was not prepared for it.

All she’d wanted was a nice vacation with Sofia. Their first time ever where it was just the two of them. No other family, just them, seven days of beaches, historical buildings, and stony shores; a nice balcony cabin, good food, maybe working on her tan. She’d looked forward to it so much. Both of them had. Sofia hadn’t shut up about it in days.

Sofia would scream bloody murder should she as much as consider to turn around now.

Not that there was anywhere to go. They had their suitcases and at least two dozen people behind them, no way to get out without drawing unwanted attention to them.

All she could do was hold on to her daughter’s shoulders and hope that Sansa wouldn’t turn around in the wrong moment. That she’d go through the check-in desk without turning, and then if - _when_ \- they would meet on the ship, Margaery would have a game plan. Could react more appropriate than the few minutes she currently had to wrap her head around what was happening.

That first part fell into place almost too well. So well, that Margaery wondered if Sansa had seen her first and was doing the exact same thing she was doing.

Something that Loras was happy to point out to her when she called him locked into the cabin’s bathroom, still very close to hyperventilating or crying. Whichever would hit her first.

“You could also try to just avoid her? It is a big ship,” he suggested, way too calmly for her own level of anxiety. “Rest assured Sansa will be as eager to avoid you, as you her.”

He had a point there. A point that did not solely make it better.

“Or, you know, you could still leave,” he pointed out after a moment where she had not replied to anything. “You guys are still in port.”

“And say what to Sofia?”

“Come up with an excuse. Coming up with a white lie should not be that big of a challenge to you.”

“I don’t lie to my daughter.”

She could hear him rolling his eyes at her. Knew what would come before he said it.

“You have been lying to her for the past six years.”

…

Margaery was the first thing she saw when taking a first glance into the restaurant.

That she’d spotted her immediately was not a coincidence. All day she’d been like this. Looking for her. Expecting her. Expecting this to happen.

It was like watching a horror movie, knowing the killer was hiding behind the door that was conveniently in frame and then still jolting when the door opened and the masked psycho tore through it.

Her every sense had been on alert ever since she’d seen her earlier, behind them in the check-in line.

Actually she’d seen Sofia first. Had seen the excited smile and the bright blue eyes, the curls. And in the same moment where she’d thought how much the little girl looked like Sofia -not an uncommon occurrence, but something that happened to her at least once a every other week- she’d spotted Margaery, and had twisted around as fast as if she was looking at Medusa herself.

“Mom, are you coming?” Catie had a frown on her face, when she didn’t follow behind the host and all that Sansa could do was force a smile and freeze it in place as they were led to their table.

Literally, _their_ table. 

Sansa wondered briefly if this had been some human’s doing, someone thinking that it was a nice thing, putting two single moms and their daughters down at the same table, or plain and simple computer generated coincidence.

And then two pairs of blue eyes settled on one another, the host pulled a chair back for her and before she knew it she was seated on a small round table, Catie to her left, Sofia to her right, Margaery across from her.

“Good evening.”

It wasn't exactly the first words she’d imagined to hear from her after not seeing her for six years, but her voice was velvet, her smile gentle, slightly crooked and despite her best efforts to appear neutral, Sansa could not _not_ smile at her.

She was just as beautiful as she remembered her, her eyes just as kind, her smile so, so gorgeous.

“Good evening,” Sansa returned.

And from there on out didn’t know where to look or how to behave.

They had not considered this. Had not expected this to be a scenario. Had not discussed what they would tell the kids should this ever happen.

Were they going to sit here, like they didn’t know each other?

Like they had not lived together for the span of two years?

Like she had not been there for the birth of Sofia?

Like Margaery had not carried Catie in her arms for endless nights when she’d been crying with colics.

“Hi,” Sofia smiled brightly at both of them. “I’m Sofia. And this is my mama, Margaery.”

 _Mama_.

Mom and Mama. Sansa felt her heart beating in her throat. She’d stuck with it. They’d stuck with it.

Sansa swallowed, hit by the memory of having the two eight month olds in their laps and trying to poke their first words out of them, hit so hard by it that she caught Catie’s wondering eyes on her later than appropriate.

“I am Catie,” she said and frowned into Sansa’s direction briefly. “And this is my mom, Sansa.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” Sofia had her hand propped on one hand and smiled brightly.

It had been bearable, keeping apart for the past six years, but now sitting here together, how much the girls didn’t know about those first years of their lives, like it never had happened. When it had very much happened. Had been, for the bigger part, or the more prominent part one of the happiest times in Sansa’s life.

It had not taken more than these couple of seconds for all that assurance that they had done the right thing, disappear into thin air.

They had made it three courses through one of the longest dinners of Sansa’s life, the plates of their main course just cleared off the table when Margaery leaned towards Sofia, giving her best conspiratory look.

“Here’s an idea,” she stage whispered with a playfully narrowed eyes. “Why don’t you show Catie the dessert buffet? Show her the ropes… which waiters to bribe for the good stuff. Word has it sometimes they give out bits of dessert early.”

It was captivating to see just how much Catie was enchanted by Margaery – same as anyone who had ever met her was and a moment later she looked at Sansa with sparkling eyes like Christmas came early. “May I?”

Sansa mustered a small smile and a nod. “If you bring me some of that dessert.”

Sofia was already out of her seat and Catie’s hands in her own, pulling her off towards where the dessert table was set up, and Margaery released an audible breath once they were out of earshot.

Reassuring, Sansa thought. To see her not as unaffected as she had appeared at first.

“Hi,” she greeted, her resting her chin on one hand, still smiling, but not bothering to hide the strain anymore.

“Hey,” Sansa gave back, mirroring her position.

A few seconds passed in silence and then Margaery picked the wine bottle out of the cooler. 

“Wine?” she offered, and was filling Sansa’s glass before she had mustered a nod, then refilled her own.

They both took a long sip and sat in silence for a moment before lowering the glasses back to the table and sat in an iron silence that seemed to last forever.

Years ago, there had been nothing they could not talk about, times when they’d overthrown themselves in talking to each other, where it had been unimaginable that a time like this would ever come. A time where they wouldn’t know what to say to one another.

Sansa settled on mom-talk, the kind of small talk she held with women from Catie’s tennis club, because it felt like it was the only thing safe to say, not the only thing that connected them still, but that with the least controversial emotions.

Their shared love for the girls had never been a point of question.

“She has grown so much,” she said with a nod towards Sofia, who talked to a intrigued listening Catie.

“I was about to say the same,” Margaery gave back. “Catie is huge.”

Sansa took another sip of the wine. Dornish, Margaery’s typical choice. It was delicious and brought a bitter sweet sentiment to her chest, that was similar to laying eyes on her.

“She doesn’t know…,” Margaery let the question fade off, because there were too many ways to end that sentence.

Sansa shook her head. “No. Or remember.”

Those words filled her with more sadness than she could possibly say.

“Good,” the determined way Margaery said that single word added to the sadness in Sansa. She caught it, noticed it, in the same flash and slipped into a softer demeanour. “I mean, Sofia doesn’t either. And honestly I don’t think we ought to make things more complicated than they already are.”

How much more complicated than being stuck here together for the next week could it get?

“Agreed.”

“We’ll just stay out of each other’s way as far as possible,” Margaery went on. “I’ll talk to the Maître later and see what we can do about our meal times and seating arrangements.”

The two girls returned before Sansa could return something, before she could think about her instinct of wanting to object. Two plates loaded to the brim with chocolate fruit were placed on the table and she watched Margaery draw her eyebrows up as she caught a chocolate covered strawberry that had fallen off before it could stain the white linen.

“That looks like a healthy choice,” Margaery commented with a smirk towards both girls.

“At least it’s fruit,” Sofia returned with a shrug and a pointed look. “Could be worse, right?”

Catie pushed her plate over to Sansa so she could take a few pieces for herself. “So guess what,” she said with drawn up eyebrows, not waiting for an answer. “Sofia and her mom are going whale watching tomorrow as well.”

“At the same time as us too,” Sofia added, with a mouthful of chocolate grapes, towards Margaery. “Aaand—”

“Swallow first, please,” Margaery interrupted her softly.

The girl hastily chewed, but Catie finished for her with a big smile towards Sansa. “The steward said that they have small boats for four people.”

“It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

Perfect doesn’t even begin to cover it, Sansa thought with a look in Margaery’s direction.

…

**_May 2013_ **

_Sansa watched the girls babble at each other, each pulling at one leg of the stuffed wolf toy they had sitting between them in the playpen and she could hardly hold back the tears._

_“Don’t you think we owe it to them to find a way of making it work?” she asked._

_The sound of Margaery putting clothes into a suitcase behind her prominent like standing next to a speaker at a concert. She couldn’t hear anything else, just again and again clothes rustling as she folded them, and flattened them into the suitcase. She couldn’t get herself to turn around, to look at her, to watch her pack._

_Then the sound stopped and she heard Margaery sigh. “I think,” she brought out thoughtfully, “that we owe it to them to give them stability.”_

_Sansa wrapped her arms around herself. “And the only home, the only family they ever knew isn’t that?”_

_“This hasn’t been exactly the happy home we want for them for a while now, has it?”_

_There was no arguing with that. Sansa tried to remember the last time they had actually been able to have a civil conversation with each other._

_This might actually be it for the first time in months, she thought._

_“No,” Sansa acknowledged at last._

_“I think, maybe, we were too focused on not putting one before the other, when that is exactly what they both need. They are our daughters, and they deserve to be our priorities.”_

_“Beyond our own happiness?”_

_She heard, sensed, Margaery coming closer from behind, tensed before she felt the hand reaching for her own. “Only we haven’t been happy for a while now.” Fingers tightened in hers. “Have we?”_

_Sansa closed her eyes. “I tried to be.”_

_“I know. So have I.”_

_“I still love you.” Sansa dared a tentative glance in her direction with the words._

_The hold of Margaery’s hand bordered on painful. “And I still love you.” She looked to the floor and let go of her hand. “Too much still to be the reason for your unhappiness.”_

…

** Day 2 – Sisterton **

_Date: Sunday, May 19_ _ th _ _2019_

_Arrival: 08:00_

_Departure: 17:00 (all on board 16:30)_

_Sisterton used to be a small, mean town, ranking with the odors of pig waste and rotting fish. The story says that by the Gallows Gate hanged men with their entrails dangling out._

_Luckily those times are long gone and Sisteron is now most famous for its historical houses, daub-and-wattle hovels with roofs of straw, the famous lighthouse tower, and the ruins of the medieval castle, Breakwater._

…

The scenery was nothing short of breath-taking. Paying the slightly higher rate for the excursion, the one that went out on smaller boats, as opposed to one for twenty people at once, had absolutely been worth the price. Here they were just six, seven including the guide. An elderly couple that kept on pushing sweets towards them, the two girls, her and Sansa.

Once upon a time, this had been what they had imagined a family vacation to be like. Together in the sun, discovering new places, having fun, smiling together… and here they were. Except, well, for that last part. But for what it was worth, both girls were smiling.

Both her and Sansa shared an expression of strained suppressed awkwardness that they concealed by focusing their attention to their daughters. Having two excited little girls sitting next to them was their one and only saving grace.

…along with the large aviator sunglasses that hid Margaery’s looks that repentantly went back to Sansa and lingered just the tiniest bit too long on the other woman, bordered on flat out staring after a while.

All the things that had once drawn her to Sansa Stark were still very much there, if possible even stronger than six years ago. She’d matured in the very best and graceful way. When before there had always been even the tiniest bit of a young girl present in her features, she was now an adult woman, a freakishly attractive woman. Long legs were on display in jean shorts, a loose white shirt over it, through which Margaery could see the shape of a bikini top. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wore a base cap to protect her face from the sun, along with large sunglasses.

“Mama,” came the long drawn call next to her, in the way only little kids could. “Are you listening?”

Margaery blinked and tore her eyes away from black bikini straps over fair skinned shoulders. “Sorry, sweetie?”

“I asked if you’ve ever seen a dolphin this up close.” Sofia had a dramatic exasperated sigh in her tone, then she squinted her eyes. “Are you alright? Your complexion is a little pale.”

Margaery rolled her eyes, and made a mental note to not have Loras watch her as often as he had; simultaneously she noted the small smile that tucked on Sansa’s lips. Because, yes, what eight year old talked like that?

One other as it turned out.

“Maybe you are seasick. You should try to fixate a point on the horizon if you are,” came the prompt and concerned input from Catie across from them.

It has been somewhat of a principle for them, for her and Sansa. Even when they were babies they had talked in adult language with them, had for sure cooed their words at the girls as any loving parents did, but had stood away from baby talk, from un-words, as Sansa had called it.

Despite that, Sansa seemed surprised by her daughter’s knowledge as she frowned down at her. “How do you know about curing sea sickness?”

Catie shrugged, already focused back on the water, trying to spot more dolphins and whales. “I have done some research.”

At that tone, one that basically said “Duh.” Margaery couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

“Have you now?” Sansa had lost her fight against trying not to smile as well.

“Yes,” Catie said with a short glance back. “You see, the brain needs a point to relate to what the body is feeling. To put it into context.”

Sansa kissed the crown Catie’s head. “My little encyclopaedia.”

“Well thank you for the advice. I do appreciate it,” Margaery offered up with a still amused smile, and then shifted her look to Sofia. “But I am fine. I promise.”

Sofia looked at her sceptical for another moment, appearing like she wanted to say something else, but the voice of the guide prevented her from doing so.

“Alright folks. We’ll make our swim stop here.”

The children's feet didn’t need more than the split of a second to stand on the plastic floor of the boat, making it rock a bit in their enthusiasm.

“Can we?” Excited children voices called out simultaneously at their respective mothers.

While Margaery smiled, and already nodded, she caught the hesitant shake of Sansa’s head a moment too late.

Two small faces fell in perfect sync so dramatically it was amusing.

“Mom please!”

Sansa brushed her hand over her daughters face, down to her shoulder. “You’re not the best swimmer, honey. And there are a lot of waves today.”

“But I am wearing a life vest!” She gestured down at herself. “This carries up to forty kilos and I am barely thirty four.”

“I don’t think it's safe. We can swim in the pool on board later.”

“That one is for babies and toddlers,” Catie pouted. “Sofia gets to go! And she’s even younger than me.”

Sansa made a face. “By five days.”

Margaery had kept herself busy, helping Sofia out of her shorts and shoes, but noted the way her head spun around curiously to Sansa.

“How do you know that?”

Now Catie looked at her a little puzzled as well, and Sansa, too caught up in her slip, did not have the answer they were both looking for, so Margaery jumped in to save her.

“I told her,” she offered up and fixed Sofia’s curls tighter into the ponytail. “Moms talk, you know?”

Margaery for her part had been fighting this instinct all day. That need to point out things that contained shared memories. Memories the girls didn’t know anything of. Things that would lead to questions if she didn’t pay attention.

This slip up was luckily quickly forgotten as it had come up and Catie went back to gripping onto Sansa’s hands pleadingly. “So can I go? Please?!”

“We could sit on the edge?” Sansa suggested. “Put our feet in the water. How about that?”

Nothing about that, going by the furrowing of brows.

“Isn’t that more dangerous than being in the water?” Sofia said, half wondering out loud, half arguing. “I mean you could slip off easily and I think the an uncontrolled impact on water might be more severe than just swimming for a little.”

Had Sansa been amused earlier by Sofia’s eloquence, now only a very tight smile made it to her lips.

“But she’s right!” Catie argued again now.

“Tell you what,” Margaery interjected. “How about I go in with them?”

By the way Sansa looked at her, even with the shades on, Margaery could tell that Sansa didn’t appreciate the offer about a fraction as much as Catie did. Almost wished she could have taken it back.

“Oh yes!” the older girl cheered, one of her hands now reaching out for Margaery’s, the other still clinging to Sansa. “Please, mom, please!”

“My mama is a great swimmer,” Sofia offered diplomatically. “She almost qualified for the Olympics at one point.”

Sansa’s eyes were unreadable through the sunglasses, but after a long while of contemplation she nodded. “I will come in with you.”

Being in the warm water -that was actually just reaching the stomach for both women- had a relaxing effect on Sansa it seemed. The tense look melted from her face as she swam together with Catie, giggled as they got into a splash fight, and had a race along the sand bank.

Unfortunately it re-appeared almost as soon as they were out of the water and didn’t disappear for almost the entire ride back, even as both girls, tired from the sun and the water had curled up in their laps, sleeping.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t contradict me like that again,” Sansa told her in a quiet tone that was on the edge.

“That honestly wasn’t my intention,” Margaery gave back. Swallowed back apologetic words that wanted to suggest that it had turned out to be perfectly safe, fun even.

“She’s my responsibility, I’m her mother.”

And that silenced all remaining conversation between them.

**_March 2013_ **

_“No, what it means is that I need you to be able to rely on you.”_

_Sansa’s jaw tightened at the accusatory tone and she dug her fingers into the piece of laundry she was folding. “When have you ever not been able to rely on me?”_

_Margaery huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Today wasn’t a first, Sansa.”_

_Sansa stared her down, her hands now braced on the kitchen counter, silently daring her to list those times she was talking about. When nothing came she went back to defending herself. “You are being dramatic. I was twenty minutes late.”_

_“Their policy is to call after thirty minutes,” Margaery shot back._

_“So it was thirty minutes. You act like I was abandoning her alone in the rain for hours all by herself. She was safely in day-care, with five thousand toys and a whole flog of caretakers around her.”_

_“Do you have any ideas what thirty minutes are for a two year old? It was her first day there without Catie, the first day where I didn’t come to pick her up. Do you have any idea what that can do to a child?”_

_“For Gods' sakes, stop reading those psychology books,” Sansa groaned with a roll of her eyes. “She was fine. She cried, yes, but it was forgotten as soon as we left the building. We went to have ice cream and—”_

_“Now that’s good parenting.”_

_Now Sansa shook her head, tapped her fingers against the surface. “Listen. I was barely half an hour late. Traffic was a nightmare, then Catie spilled juice all over herself…”_

_“There it is,” Margaery interrupted, her chin raised in challenge. “Catie.”_

_Sansa narrowed her eyes. “What is_ that _supposed to mean?”_

_To her credit she actually hesitated before she said it, but said it nevertheless. “It wasn’t the first time you weren’t able to prioritise like you should.”_

_“You’re joking right?”_

_“I wish I was,” Margaery shrugged tight-lipped. “I have kept quiet, because in the past at least I could see you trying—”_

_“You don’t get to lecture me about playing favourites,” Sansa returned, fighting the rise in volume of her voice. “You least of all people. When it comes to discipling, to taking sides, Catie will always, and I mean_ always _, get the harsher end of the bargain from you.”_

_“Have you thought that this might be a reaction to protecting her from you favouring Sofia?”_

_“Are you listening to yourself?”_

_“Are you?!”_

_…_

** Day 3 – At Sea **

_Date: Monday, May 20_ _ th _ _2019_

_On our way from Sisterton to Braavos, enjoy the lovely sight of the lighthouse tower at our departure that is visible up to thirty nautical miles in the distance._

_We wish you a relaxing and pleasant day at sea!_

…

Catie was stalling. In between taking frustratingly small bites of her bagel and studying the excursion program, she kept on looking back towards the restaurant entrance.

Sansa knew she was waiting for Margaery and Sofia to appear at breakfast. They had not been able to avoid dinner together last night, but there a day out in the sun, had the girls tired enough to stay away from any further extensive joint plans. They had a full day ahead at sea today, and Sansa was determined not to spend it again with the Tyrell duo.

Spending even an hour with her tore on her. On her strength, on her mood, on every decision she’d made during the past six years; brought up more feelings and memories than she cared for.

That bitter taste of guilt for how hostile she had been to Margaery yesterday on the entire ride back gnawed on her. Like it always had. Even when she knew she was in the right, Margaery looked so hurt… ugh. She had also known yesterday that Margaery had only wanted to be helpful, but she’d just ended up pushing a button within Sansa. That whole damn good mother, bad mother was not a first.

“Honey, you should eat up if we want to make it to the excursions presentation.”

Catie shrugged. “I already read the brochure. I want to do the tour to the Isle of Gods.”

The way this girl had read up on their trip was again and again astonishing her. She was better prepared than Sansa in more than one way.

“Well, we still need to get going if we want to book it,” Sansa pointed out. “I reckon it will be booked pretty quickly.”

“Yes,” Catie sighed and took another baby bird bite of her bagel. “Can we just wait for Sofia and her mama and see if they want to come along with us? That would be so much fun.”

Sansa’s stomach knotted up. It wasn’t like she had not predicted this, just Catie saying it so clearly forced her into more honesty than she wanted to offer to a little girl. Not the whole truth of course. Not that she couldn’t bear to spend another whole day in their presence, all of them together, because it hurt her. That it had taken her years to get over Margaery Tyrell; to not wonder every day how Sofia looked, how she was doing.

Sansa worded it carefully. “I was actually hoping it could be just the two of us.”

Catie made a face that reminded Sansa of Arya as a child in that age. “No offense, mom, but we are together all day long.”

Sansa drew up her eyebrows at the frank statement, smiled a little when she shouldn’t have. “I am sorry, am I boring you?”

“No,” Catie said with a small roll of her eyes that let her understand that she was, even if just a little bit.

It was not unreasonable for a child to want to spend time with other children.

“You don’t like them very much do you? Sofia and her mom?”

Liking them too much is my problem, Sansa thought.

“I like them fine,” Sansa gave back. “But I want to try and avoid any obligations. For them or for us. If they want to go on a different trip they should be able to do so, without consideration for us, and the same thing goes for us. Do you understand that?”

“I guess.”

Sansa should have known better as to think the topic was off the table just like that.

She got lucky when they went to the presentation and didn’t see either Margaery, nor Sofia there, but her luck lasted barely to noon when they arrived at the pool deck and excited waving and calling out deterred them from the way that Sansa had intended. Of course there were two pool chairs unoccupied next to them.

“Sit with us!” Sofia smiled as dazzling, and unwilling to take no for an answer in a manner that reminded Sansa a whole lot of Margaery.

Meanwhile Margaery didn’t muster much more than a small smile, barely looked up from the book in her hands as Sansa and Catie settled on the other side of them. The girls were off towards the kids pool within barely more than a minute, leaving the two women behind in uncomfortable silence.

Sansa was never someone who had minded silence, from anyone really. Unless it came from Margaery. Margaery who was always talking, always babbling and smiling about something giving her the silent treatment had forever driven her up the wall. Mainly because she knew if Margaery went silent, she had messed up. And Sansa had messed up the previous day. She had been out of line.

Sansa gave a glance in her direction when she sat down sideways on the chair, offered a small smile when she took a closer look at her book cover, held up her own copy then, that Margaery took only note of with a short look.

“Do you like it,” she asked, eyes focused back on the open page in front of her.

“I’ve only gotten around to read the first ten pages,” Sansa admitted. “A colleague recommended it with flaming passion. Do you?”

“It makes some good points, but all over too conservative for me.” And yet, she kept reading like it was the most enthralling book of all time.

Knowing when not to push her luck, Sansa took a sip of water and thereafter focused her attention on putting sunscreen on herself.

She blamed it on her inability to handle Margaery upset with her, when she turned to her a while later, holding up the sun screen. “Would you mind?”

The shades moved on Margaery’s face as she drew up her eyebrows, she hesitated a couple of seconds. “Eh, yeah, sure.”

How bad of an idea it was, how downright _idiotic_ and pushing past all smart and wise, reached Sansa, when Margaery sat down behind her on her beach chair.

Too close. Too fucking close.

And too late.

Margaery had taken the sun screen, lathered up her hands and a moment later they were on Sansa’s shoulders and she was powerless to do anything but relax her muscles under her touch.

To her credit, Margaery kept it simple, worked quickly, didn’t linger. But that didn’t matter. It had been six years since she’d felt her hands on her, and it was like her body, her skin remembered. A path of heat followed the way Margaery’s hand took and wouldn’t disappear, leaving a tingling behind, a longing for more; a longing for her to linger, to go slower, to touch her in the way she had used to.

“Going for the high SPF I see,” Margaery spoke after a while, and Sansa hated how normal her voice sounded, how perfectly unaffected. “Good choice.”

“Learned that lesson the hard way,” Sansa’s voice sounded almost trembling to herself, she prayed that it was only in her head.

“I remember,” Margaery’s smile was audible in her voice, and her hands slipped beneath the back strap of Sansa’s bikini top. “You were unbearable that day.”

“Days,” Sansa corrected, barely got the word out before she had to bite her lip because fingers drew down along her sides.

“Right. Longer days than when both the girls had a stomach bug at the same time.” Hands disappeared and Sansa missed them in the same moment. “There, all done.”

“Thanks,” Sansa spoke over her shoulder and caught her eyes for just a moment too long.

Her hands had felt like they had six years ago, like there had been no time in between, and the pull they had on each other was the same. She could only assume the look underneath the round sunglasses Margaery was wearing, but didn’t need to see them, to know it had not left her as unaffected as she’d thought. She looked tense, more so than she did any day, stuck to shallow collected breaths and at last forced a smile that was nothing but a cover-up for nervousness.

With whatever willpower Sansa could muster, she slipped to the foot end of the pool chair, bringing some needed distance between them that she needed to be able to form words again.

“Listen, I’m sorry about yesterday.”

Something in Margaery’s face closed up and she shook her head. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“No I do. I know you were only trying to help.”

Margaery looked down for a moment, shook her head. “This is … it’s just hard.”

“It is.”

“For what it’s worth I tried to avoid this,” Margaery relented.

“As did I. But I was out-debated.”

“Not just you.” Margaery gave a small smile. “You teach them how to speak up for themselves, and it comes back to bite you in the ass.”

Sansa smiled as well for a second.

“Do you think,” Margaery started out, then seemed uncertain how to continue. “I mean if they want to spend time together, we should just let them? Maybe denying them could get more complicated than just letting things run its course.”

“I had the same thought,” Sansa agreed with a nod. “We could end up with more questions than we like.”

“And we should manage to be amicable right? It’s a week.”

Yes, Sansa thought. And then we never have to see each other again. Fuck.

“We could take turns,” Margaery went on. “You take them on a trip one day, I on the next.”

“Reasonable,” Sansa agreed.

And vividly ignored the part of her brain that protested that she wanted to spend time with Margaery too.

…

**_October 2012_ **

_“I’m home!”_

_Margaery had not even dropped her briefcase or closed her mouth when a hand pushed itself over her lips, and Sansa looked at her with a warning expression. “I will murder you, delimb your body and bury it in the desert if you wake them.”_

_Margaery smirked underneath Sansa’s palm, giving it a playful lick in order for her to let go. Then she did drop her briefcase and placed two arms around Sansa, pulling her against herself._

_“We both know you would hardly get the killing done before the little monsters go on their next crying fest,” she said in a hushed tone._

_“I’d take my chances,” Sansa sighed and leaned into Margaery’s hold._

_Margaery smiled and ran her hand through red hair. “Long day?”_

_Sansa hummed against her neck and closed her arms a little tighter. “Just hold me for a minute.”_

_More than happy to oblige, Margaery let her hands wander over Sansa’s back, feeling tense muscles relax under her touch. She made a small sound when her left hand landed on something sticky on Sansa’s shoulder._

_“Baby spit,” Sansa mumbled._

_“Is there any more of it, that I have now on my work clothes?”_

_“Probably. But we didn’t have carrots today, so should be relatively easy to get out.”_

_Only a moment later Sansa loosened herself from the embrace and mustered with her last strength a tired smile._

_“How awful were they today?”_

_“A solid eight.” Sansa spun around and made a gesture towards the living room where messy didn’t even start to describe it._

_For a second she overlooked the chaos, then sighed and went to the table to pick up some of the colouring pages, putting them into neat stacks. Margaery was right behind her two hands on either side of her waist._

_“I’ll get that,” she said. “You go take a shower. I’ll clean and make us something to eat.”_

_“It’s a two person job, don’t you think?”_

_Margaery took a look around and didn’t object anymore, while Sansa went on to clean up the table she took care of the living room area, where toys were hidden in the carpet like spikes._

_“So I gather you didn’t get much work done on your thesis?” Margaery predicted._

_“More than expected,” Sansa gave back, collecting crayons into a box. “But it was at the cost of this.”_

_“You know,” Margaery knew she’d regret it the second she started the sentence. “You could have dropped them off with my parents.”_

_The unforgiving look didn’t need a full second to slip into Sansa’s features. “No. We talked about this.”_

_Margaery sighed. They had, at a length, repeatedly, fought about this, and despite that, Margaery didn’t have it in herself to just let it go. “You have a deadline advancing.”_

_“I am aware.”_

_Kneeling down Margaery fished some Legos from beneath the couch, putting them back into the box, then looked back up at Sansa. “And you don’t think you could make an exemption of your principles?” She swallowed the judging wording of “stupid principles”._

_“The last thing I need is my mom on my back right now,” Sansa gave back._

_“Sansa, even your mom has to know that she’s being unreasonable in this. You are writing your thesis. Your whole future career relies on this.”_

_Catelyn had, not straight out complained, but pointed out that the girls got to spend way more time with Margaery’s parents as opposed to her and Ned. Which was… not wrong. But Margaery’s parents lived half an hour away, the Starks at the other end of the continent._

_“I will manage without either of our parents,” Sansa returned determined -stubborn- starting to put the colouring material away into the big cubicle drawers. “I got a great deal done today. And if you keep the girls off my back for the next two weekends I might just—” her eyes landed on Margaery and she dropped the box she was carrying down on the table. “No. You promised.”_

_“It’s just Saturday,” Margaery gave back quickly, still kneeling, plastic pieces digging into her knees. “A couple of hours in the afternoon, my boss wants me to—”_

_Sansa shoved the box back into the shelf almost violently. “Just fantastic.”_

_“You know that I cannot say no. I am—”_

_“…this close to a promotion,” Sansa finished for her with a roll of her eyes._

_“A promotion with a significant raise,” Margaery reminded. “That you and the girls will benefit from.”_

_“What we’d benefit from is having you around before the girls are asleep, to be around on weekends.”_

_“You think I enjoy twelve hour workdays? Not seeing my partner or my kids the whole day?”_

_“Part of you, yes,” Sansa shot back. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking you are doing it for us, when the greatest beneficiary of it all is your own damn ambition.”_

_A crying sound came from the other room, and both of their defensive stances slumped._

_“Great,” Sansa mumbled. “Just fucking great.”_

_…_

“So Margaery and I have been talking,” Sansa opened.

They were seated at their usual table over dinner, in the middle of their starters and two pair of blue eyes turned first to one another, then to their mothers, before they at last settled on Sansa.

“Since the two of you are determined to be joint at the hip we thought that the parental side should get some advantages from that.”

The girls looked both skeptical.

“How so?” Catie inquired.

“Well,” Margaery continued after a short reassuring look to Sansa who nodded. “You two have seemed to map the trips that you want to do out and really there is no reason for both Sansa and I to come along every time. So we thought we would take turns. One day, I take you, the next Sansa and so on.”

Margaery saw her daughter's expression and knew what she would say before she even opened her mouth. “But why can’t we all go together?”

She reached for Sofia’s hand. “Well for example remember that trip to the gardens in Dragon Stone I wanted to go on, interfered with you wanting to take a tour of the castle?”

Sofia nodded, still pouting.

“And Sansa here is dying to see the castle. She has a history degree you know?”

Sofia briefly looked at Sansa who gave her a nod and a smile. The girl’s lower lip was dangerously close to trembling but with more willpower and determination than a eight year old should have she shoved it back.

“And then in Gulltown, Margaery will go with you on that rafting trip,” Sansa went on.

It was written in caps on both girls' faces that this was not what they had in mind, even if Catie seemed a little less fazed than Sofia.

“Mom, if the excursions are too expensive, I don’t have to go at all,” Catie said tentatively.

Margaery fought to keep her face under control almost as much as Sansa. She’d suspected that a single mom with a history degree would not be as light to pay the considerable prices the cruise line asked.

“It’s not sweetie,” Sansa promised immediately. “I promise, okay?”

Catie looked at her with doubt in her eyes and now to make things worse Sofia chimed in. “Couldn’t we help with that? With the payment?”

Sansa looked deeply uncomfortable.

“There is no need to-- Okay, truth time,” she announced and Margaery’s head shot around to her, seeing only an unreadable expression that came with an ever so soft smile as she looked at the girls. She sent a quick, reassuring look to Margaery and before going on. “Margaery and I have a bit of a history.”

Sofia looked as intrigued as Loras, when Margaery was about to give him good gossip. “What kind of history?”

“We knew each other,” Sansa went on.

What a way to word it Margaery thought, fighting the bitter taste in her mouth.

“We went on a couple of dates. Before the two of you were born.”

Sofia looked between them, not quite shocked by the information, but put off. “You did?”

“Yes,” Margaery confirmed now, effortlessly falling in line with a story she had never agreed to. “We weren’t the best match then and still aren’t now. Hence, we’d like to avoid spending too much time together.”

“But we don’t want to stand in the way of you girls hanging out.”

Watching the kids take in the news was like watching mini versions of themselves, it was comedic and frightening all at once.

Catie took this new piece of information and seemed to silently contemplate, but kept her expression reserved. While on Sofia’s face she could clearly see that little brain go to work, something that didn’t let up for the remains of their dinner.

Or later when they were back in their cabin, getting ready for sleeping.

“Mama?”

Margaery looked up from cleaning her face and saw how Sofia had perched herself on the closed toilet lid, her eyes for a moment directed to the floor and her dangling legs, before looking back up at her.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Why weren’t you and Ms. Stark a good match?”

Now wasn’t that a loaded question to answer to a child.

Part of her had suspected that this story from Sansa might backfire. In the recent past, Sofia had been -ever coming after her mother- plotting to get her to date. Encouraged by her idiot of an uncle, Sofia had not-so-subtly tried to set her up with a single-dad from a friend in her class. The talk how that overstepped boundaries and the piece of information that Mama in fact did not care for the other gender -likewise a lovely conversation to have with an eight year old- had managed to seize any further attempts. So far.

She needed to be careful in what she told her now or she’d find herself stumbling into a candle light dinner with Sansa a day from now.

So, why hadn’t Sansa and her been a good match?

The thing was, they had been.

They had been ridiculously in love, head over heels, can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t think in love. That was never their problem. Their timing on the other hand… Margaery had thought it through so many times. Had they met even half a year before, had had a chance to grow first as a couple instead of learning to work as a family, then maybe -no, not maybe- they _would_ have worked perfectly.

“It was bad timing,” Margaery settled on. “We both had a lot going on and couldn’t be what the other needed us to be.”

“Were you _in love_ with her?” She said it in a way that only an eight year old could, who found the concept of falling in love still worthy of giggles and who remembered having her mother to herself her whole life.

Margaery hesitated. She had made it a point to answer her daughter’s question truthfully. Except for, you know, that one major part about the two first years of her life.

“At the time, yes.”

“Why though?”

At that Margaery spun around, half amused, half offended. “Excuse me?”

“She seems … mean.”

An image of Sansa flashed before her eyes. Several images. Sansa holding Sofia not much more than an hour after her birth, Sansa cuddling with Sofia, kissing her feet, tickling her, making faces at her until she laughed. Sansa hugging her when she’d taken her first steps towards her, carrying her through a sleepless night where she'd been tortured by colics.

It broke her heart that all over that Sofia didn’t remember that. That their decision to separate, had robbed them of all those memories.

But she also understood how Sofia must have gotten to know and experience Sansa in those last three days.

Ever distant, kind of tense, kind of strict, an attitude that was supposed to hide how afraid she was of letting Sofia come close because it had broken her heart to ever let her go.

Margaery crouched down in front of Sofia, a tight fit in the small space of the bathroom. “Remember how we talked about first impressions when you didn’t like your second grade teacher?”

Sofia nodded. “The onion talk.”

“Sansa is a little like that,” Margaery said. “She is more reserved and that can come across as mean. But I know for a fact, that she is one of the kindest people in the world.”

…

**_January 2012_ **

_Margaery’s head poked in through the door and Sansa lifted her head up tiredly._

_“Is she asleep?” Margaery mouthed, Catie in her arms -at last- peacefully passed out._

_Sansa gave a quick controlling glance down at Sofia who was on her stomach, a thumb in her mouth and then nodded._

_Margaery tiptoed closer and placed Catie next to Sofia, resting herself on the other side of the bed, her head propped up on her elbow._

_They both froze for the few seconds that Catie started to stir again, praying, crossing fingers and toes that she wouldn’t wake up again, and thereafter smiled when they watched the way Catie worked herself closer to the other girl._

_Margaery dropped her head down flatly on the pillow and sighed in relief and Sansa reached over the girls, to brush hair that had come undone from her ponytail out of her face, so she could get a look at her, was rewarded with a soft smile and eyes blinking up lazily a moment later._

_“I feel like I haven’t seen you all day,” Sansa whispered._

_They had both been home all day, but both occupied with soothing kids that were crying like they were about to be murdered, in separate rooms, because the crying of one seemed to fire on the other to go even louder and vice versa._

_Having one teething child on your hands was a challenge, two turned out to be an absolute nightmare, a sleep deprived one._

_“I’m sorry… you are?” Margaery smiled up lazily, but ever too satisfied with her own joke._

_“Have you eaten yet?”_

_Margaery shook her head. “Too tired to eat,” she mumbled, burying her face in the pillow._

_“Come on,” Sansa gave her shoulder a gentle nudge. “We need to eat. Weakening us is what they want.”_

_Margaery groaned quietly into the pillow, but pushed herself up nevertheless._

_Making sure the girls were safely tucked in they shuffled off to the kitchen, Sansa with an arm around Margaery’s lower back, letting her lean into her._

_“How long again until they have all their teeth?” She asked pulling a box with turkey ham out of the fridge._

_“I think until they are around three.” In her tiredness and contemplating about the question, Sansa needed almost embarrassingly long to snap open the plastic wrapping of the bread. “And some articles say that the second teeth can cause an equal grumpiness.”_

_Margaery contemplated for a moment. “At least by then they will be able to tell us what the fuck they want.”_

_“Language,” Sansa chided._

_“Oh fuck that. They are asleep.”_

_Sansa stepped behind Margaery and placed both arms around her waist, pulling her close. “Remember, it’s just a phase. We’ll get through it.”_

_“It’s the how I am worried about.” Margaery leaned back, some of the tension melting of her face with a first kiss against her shoulder. “I missed you today.”_

_“And I missed you,” Sansa replied, brushing her nose against the skin of Margaery’s neck. “It was supposed to be our day off together.”_

_Her hands started to roam, and with it Margaery sunk a little further back against her, tilted her head to the side to give her all the access she needed to press kisses against her skin._

_“Has it come to this?” Margaery chuckled breathy as Sansa’s hands dipped beneath the waistband of her sweats. “Us fucking in the kitchen because they occupy our bed.”_

_“Language,” Sansa reminded with a gentle bite to her shoulder._

_She_ heard _Margaery smirk, “Fuck me, love.”_

_…_

** Day 4 – Braavos **

_Date: Tuesday, May 21_ _ st _ _2019_

_Arrival: 05:00_

_Departure: 21:00 (all on board 20:30)_

_Welcome to the city that has held its reputation as the wealthiest and most powerful of the Free Cities since antiquity._

_It‘s location at the lagoon on the north western end of Essos, where the narrow sea and the Shivering Sea meet has made Braavos one of the most frequent travelled ports for centuries. Enjoy a walk through the hold town by the harbour, admire the skyscrapers of the financial district or board a boat through the Hundred Isles and the Secret City._

_What used to be referred to as the "Bastard Daughter of Valyria" has turned into the perfect family vacation spot._

…

Sansa had honestly thought that having two girls under her wing would be easy. And it had been, for the first half of the day. The girls were perfectly behaved, polite, listened to her and both honestly interested and intrigued in the Isle of Gods.

She had been as prudent as she’d always been. Not letting them too far out of sight, always within a call distance, making sure they were aware of their where-abouts, and yet here she was in an Braavosi emergency room, a crying Sofia in her lap, soaking through her shirt with her tears and Catie clinging to her side tighter than she had in years.

They had been in the Gardens of Gelenai, for a scheduled break, before going on to the House of Black and White, the girls had been roaming through the gardens, happily snapping pictures on Sansa’s phone, of flowers, animals, themselves, pretty much everything they came across. And then halfway through her cappuccino she’d heard Catie call, no cry.

High pitched, panicked, bone chilling.

Sansa had been on her feet not a heartbeat later, had found the girls not fifty metres away, Catie crying, clinging to her side as soon as she’d been there and crouched down next to them. She’d given her daughter a quick once over, but found nothing alarming, or even dangerous. Then she’d focused on Sofia who was quietly sitting on the ground, her complexion grey, holding her arm to herself that was hanging down limply.

The explanation to what had happened had come timidly out of Catie, while Sofia remained silent, pressing her lips together in a way that had Sansa afraid she’d throw up any second.

They had been running, wanting to see the weirwoods, because Sofia had never seen one. And then she’d fallen.

It had taken Sansa more patience than her shaken nerves were granting her. Luckily soon there was a small cluster of people around them, a first aid kit provided, and with the help of a triangular bandage they’d braced Sofia’s arm in a way that offered enough stability to have her stand up. Still Sansa had gathered her up in her arms and despite the insistence of the tour guide to help, carried her to the taxi herself.

And she had not let go for the entire time they sat in the examination room of the ER, waiting for way longer than anyone should wait with an injured child. Had Sofia not clung to her as she had, had Sansa had it within herself to let go of her for even a second, she would have gone and screamed at the medical staff about fifteen minutes ago already.

But instead she sat there, an ever growing knot in her stomach, two girls holding on to her softly swaying both of them back and forth, humming the same song she’d sung for them when they were inconsolable infants.

“My mama sings that for me,” Sofia muttered against Sansa’s chest.

I know, Sansa thought. I taught her. I used to sing it for you.

When at last the doctor came, Sansa listed Sofia's medical history and allergies effortlessly. She sat with her -in a heavy lead apron- during the x-ray and still held her to herself when the doctor showed them on the picture just where the injury was. The fracture clearly visible even to a non-professional like Sansa.

“Luckily, because of her age, we won’t need surgery. We’ll do a repositioning of the bones and put her in cast and she’ll be as good as new.”

Big blue eyes, with barely dried tears looked up at Sansa and her right -uninjured- hand tightened in her shirt. “Will that hurt?”

As a teenager Sansa had once dislocated her shoulder in an accident. It had hurt like a bitch to reposition it. But she couldn’t very well tell that to a child.

“We’ll give you something, so you don’t feel a thing,” the paediatrician saved Sansa a moment later.

“I want my mama,” came at last the word that Sansa had been afraid of all this time.

I do too, Sansa thought.

“She’s on her way,” Sansa promised. “Our guide called the ship the second we went into the taxi.”

How idiotic for her and Margaery not to exchange numbers, she chided herself.

“How long until she will be here?”

“I’m sure she’s moving heavens and earth to be here as fast as possible, little rose petal.”

Sofia cringed when the venous access was placed in her uninjured arm, but looked up confused a moment later. “My mama calls me that. It’s our secret.”

Sansa was once again saved from an answer, when the nurse finished the plaster around the cannula and attached a prepared infusion to it.

“It’ll be better in just a second,” the nurse said, giving Sofia’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Before you know it, we will have you as good as new.”

Before you know it, it felt like a freaking eternity to Sansa, ironically about the longest moments of her life since Sofia’s birth. She watched with Argus eyes as the doctor did the repositioning, feeling the way Sofia firmly pressed into her in the same moment, and then only gradually relaxed again when the cast was placed around her slim arm.

A first sense of energy returned to both girls when the nurse asked them for colour preferences, with a gesture to the rainbow of cast bandages behind her.

“Purple,” Catie suggested, her grip on Sansa now slowly releasing itself too, the tension disappearing from her face as Sofia’s tears had stopped. “You should get purple!”

Sofia glanced over the other colours and at last nodded. “Yes, purple.”

Sansa hid her inappropriate smile in a kiss against golden brown curls. “Purple it is,” she agreed, even when knowing that Margaery hated the colour with a burning passion. She wasn’t about to care about that or argue, just when there was something like a smile back on the girl’s face.

Margaery arrived when the worst of the drama was already forgotten.

Sansa was finishing paper work in the waiting area, while Catie, worked on the nicest caricature of a baby wolf on Sofia’s cast with a black marker.

She rushed in as a bit of a mess, her hair pulled up in a messy curly bun, just a pair of sweats and a spotty t-shirt on herself, that reminded Sansa of the massage she had told them she was going to get.

Catie did not pull back fast enough and ended up drawing a black marker line along Margaery’s arm, when she moved to capture her daughter’s face between her hands.

“Are you okay?” She asked, skimming over a face that was still a little spotty from all the crying. “What happened?”

“A broken ulna bone,” Catie offered up, closing the marker. “The doctor said it would need six weeks to heal.”

Margaery looked a little bewildered between Sofia and Catie, then for a moment at Sansa who wished the ground would swallow her whole, braced herself for Margaery to yell at her.

“I ran in flip flops,” Sofia said sheepishly. “I’m sorry, mama.”

“But you’re okay?” Margaery probed on, getting a gentle hold of the injured arm. “Does it hurt?”

“Only a little still. And it itches.” She lifted up her arm then to show the drawing Catie had yet to finish. “But look Catie did this old northern sigil. Doesn’t he look like Poppy?”

The tension and anxiety had not left Margaery’s face altogether, but she managed a small smile, at the mention of the stuffed toy, that had been a gift from Arya. “Amazingly so.”

“I have one just like it,” Catie explained. “Her name is Isla.”

“I’m so sorry, Margaery,” Sansa spoke the words that had been threatening to choke her.

In all the reactions she had expected out of Margaery, finding herself on the receiving end of a tight embrace was not one of them, she stood there frozen for a moment, completely overwhelmed with the gesture, unsure what to make of it, what to do.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” she sounded so genuinely grateful and relieved, at last Sansa managed to return the gesture, and close her arms around her back.

“She’s a brave little rose petal,” Sansa gave back, only loud enough for them to hear.

…

**_November 2011_ **

_“Do you know that I hate you? Just the tiniest bit?”_

_Sansa turned to where Margaery was stretched out on the bed, watching her as she got dressed._

_“Aw,” she deadpanned. “I love you too, Marg.”_

_“I mean it,” Margaery said, and rolled onto her stomach, her head supported on her hands._

_“And what makes me so deserving of your hatred?”_

_“Look at you,” Margaery huffed, half leering, half glaring over Sansa how she stood there clad in her underwear. Legs up to her neck, a flat stomach, hips with just the right curve, all toned in a way that made Margaery wonder if she’d been seeing a personal trainer in secret. “You had a human come out of your body eight months ago. You shouldn’t be allowed to look like you do.”_

_Sansa looked down on herself for only a brief moment, then back up at Margaery. “It doesn’t make it better when I say that you know I did nothing for that?”_

_Margaery glared darkly and buried her head in her folded arms. “I hate you.”_

_The mattress dipped where Sansa sat down next to her. She stroked a hand over her bare back. “Are you being serious here. The grand Margaery Tyrell insecure about her looks?”_

_“Not insecure,” Margaery corrected, closing her eyes at Sansa’s gentle touch. “Just envious of your stupid super model measurements.”_

_Sansa’s hand kept on drawing patterns on her bare skin, skimmed up her sides and back down, brushed the sheet off of her ass._

_“Do you have any idea how sexy you are?” She bent down and kissed her naked shoulder blade, simultaneously squeezed a butt cheek. “How many women would kill to look like you eight months after giving birth?”_

_“Not as many as for your look.”_

_Sansa’s tongue darted out, letting Margaery shiver._

_“Now you’re just being difficult on purpose,” Sansa accused._

_Margaery sighed at the touch that seemed to appreciate every inch of skin presented to it._

_“Maybe,” she conceded. “It’s just not fair that I get the stretch marks and then take longer to be back to my old figure.”_

_“What stretch marks?” Sansa placed an open mouth kiss against the soft flesh on Margaery’s side. “I don’t see any.”_

_Any further return was taken away from Margaery with a hand that slipped between her legs and let her forget all about superficial concerns._

…

“This seat taken?”

“It is now.”

Margaery slipped into the empty chair at the round table, pulling the scarf she had placed around her shoulders a little tighter. “I’m glad I am not the only one in need for a drink tonight.”

“I think my hands stopped shaking only an hour ago or so,” Sansa answered.

At a first glance Margaery would have never guessed. She looked as perfectly put together as she always had. Hair carefully braided, a light night blue summer dress. Only the slight tint of her cheeks still gave it away, along with the tired expression around her eyes.

“Same here,” Margaery returned. She had been in the middle of massage when the call came, as relaxed as she had not been in the entire last year and from that her body had jolted into full on alarm mood, that was hard to come down from. Even now with the soft piano music in the background, the warm air of the Narrow sea around them, the lights of the coast line still visible in the distance.

“How is Sofia?”

“Sleeping off the excitement and the pain meds.”

“Catie?”

“The kids club is doing a movie night. So busy, for another hour.”

“I imagine the excitement of today left her pretty wired up too,” Margaery presumed, giving a silent sign to a passing waiter to get her a glass of red winel.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry—”

Margaery placed a hand on top of Sansa’s, which had the intended effect of silencing her. She let her hand linger for a good few seconds longer than necessary, before withdrawing.

“Enough of that,” Margaery insisted. “Kids have accidents. It happens. She’s fine.”

Sansa took her in with half a smile. “You used to cry when the girls had to get their shots.”

“Once,” Margaery corrected with pursed lips. “And only because that doctor was an insensitive ass and I was still hormonal.”

“And then the girls didn’t as much as blink when they got the shots,” Sansa chuckled. “You kept me busier than they did.”

Now Margaery laughed too.

She be damned, but it was nice to share these memories with someone. Memories that only they had, no one else in the world.

“I have been through a lot of shots, fevers and stitches since then. They are tougher than they look.” She smiled at Sansa. “And still I was incredibly glad to have you with her today. When the call came, that was the only thing that kept me from going insane with fear. To know that you would be there to take care of her.”

A bit dramatic in wording, Margaery considered a moment later, but the look on Sansa’s face suggested the opposite.

“I’m glad to be still deserving of your trust like that.”

The waiter arriving with a glass of wine for Margaery broke the heaviness of the moment and a moment later Margaery had regained her composure and raised her glass. “To… outstanding parenting?”

Sansa laughed. “I wouldn’t take it that far.” She clinked her glass against Margaery’s. “To our outstanding girls.”

After a small sip Margaery leaned forward on the table, her head resting on her hands and she smiled at Sansa. “Tell me about her. About Catie.”

A shadow of sadness fitted over Sansa’s face before her smile slipped back in place. “She’s a damn know-it-all. Loves nothing more than being right about something, or proving someone wrong. She wants to be a journalist one day and has not strayed from that once in the past two years, can’t wait to get active in the school paper.”

“And there goes your dream of having her become a world-famous painter.”

“No, she still draws.” Sansa smiled, reached out and drew a finger along the marker line that was unfaded on Margaery’s arm, leaving tingles in its trail. “But that’s more for her to calm down I think.”

“Too bad. You had such high hopes on her finger print paintings.”

“Come on those were good! You said so yourself.”

Margaery bit her lip. “They were fingerprint paintings, Sans.”

She noted Sansa’s eyes lingering, her smile broadening at the nickname.

“Anyways, she loves tennis, to the point where it takes over my complete weekend. Bran is to blame for that of course.”

“Of course."

“She loves books. Other kids take their dolls everywhere and she will not go to a sleepover without her Kindle. Her favorite book is The Waves.”

“The Waves.” Margaery repeated with raised eyebrows.

“Yes.” There was a hint of pride in Sansa’s smile, besides her amusement. “She did a book report on it last year. A second grader reciting Virginia Woolf. I think that was a first, ever.”

“Amazing little girl you got there.”

Gods I wish I knew here. Wish I had been around.

“How about Sofia?”

“A handful as well. Even without reading feminist literature.” Margaery searched her mind for all those things that were worth knowing about Sofia. There were a million little things that she wanted Sansa to know, not enough to fill the hour they had. “Her attention span is… it keeps things interesting. She comes up with a new dream career about once a month. Last month was fashion designer, after Loras took her to work; and I have no doubt that after this she will want to become a nautical officer, or maybe a marine biologist, who knows.”

Sansa laughed. “Exploring all her possibilities then.”

“Oh yeah. Same goes for her love in music. She loves music. That will go from musicals in one week, to classic rock the next, and then some traditional Dothraki chorus one day later.”

“Does she play any instrument?”

Margaery groaned. “We put that behind us – for now. But we went through piano, drums and the guitar already.”

“She plays all of those?”

“She wanted to, but never stuck with it for more than a couple of weeks or past the basics. She loves to sing though. She’s already excited about the karaoke night they will have here on the last night. And… for her age, she does have a nice voice, can carry a tune.”

Sansa looked down at her glass, chuckled to herself.

“What?”

“Just,” she hesitated, then leaned forward on the table as well, her chin on her knuckles. “Can you imagine just how chaotic that would be had we not split up? With those two? One leaving her tennis gear and books lying around the entire house, reciting Virginia Woolf; and the other signing karaoke, mapping out new dream jobs every day?”

She had meant it as a half a joke, as a crazy scenario of what could have been, but somewhere while she had been speaking it had become more than that, and her eyes stayed on Margaery longer than they ever dared to before.

“I think it sounds nice,” Margaery gave back, her voice suddenly tight.

“Yeah.” Sansa played with the stem of her glass. “Do you sometimes wonder how-, I mean had we-, if-“

Margaery reached out and got a hold of her hand, swallowed when fingers intertwined with hers. “Every day of my life.”

A thumb brushed over her knuckles. “So do I.”

In what Margaery didn’t know whether to feel as the luckiest or the most unfortunate coincidence of all time a particular song started playing in the background, just in that moment.

“I haven’t heard that in years,” Sansa said in something resembling a groan, but the face splitting smile on her face was betraying her feigned annoyance.

“Me neither,” Margaery returned, tightening her hold on Sansa’s hand. “I’ve been avoiding it like the plague actually.”

Sansa studied her for another second, then pushed her chair back, getting to her feet; never letting go of her hand. “May I have this dance?”

Margaery felt heat rise to her cheeks and let herself be pulled up at the same time. “No one else is dancing.”

“Someone should.”

And then, with arms that settled around her waist and pulled her close, her entire consciousness limited itself to Sansa.

To soft skin, to her warmth, her firm hold, discreet, but spicy perfume, and she sunk into her hold at the edge of the dancefloor that wasn’t one, and wished that stupid song would have never started, or would never end.

It wasn’t a whole lot of dancing that they were doing, the song wasn’t right for that. It was not more than swaying back and forth, shifting their weight from one foot to another. An excuse to be close, to not let go.

Margaery had her arms wrapped around Sansa, her cheek resting on her shoulder, but facing away from her, would have not been kept reliable for her actions had she faced in the other direction. This way there was still the tangy sea breeze, that stopped her from being enwrapped by Sansa’s scent completely.

The song did end, and when it did, parting, letting go of her, turned out easier than Margaery had imagined about a minute earlier, when the melody had swollen up to her favourite part.

“It’s Cinderella hour for me,” Sansa said, still holding her hand. “Time to turn back into mom-pumpkin.”

“Can I walk you?”

It was a bad idea, and like most bad decisions in her life, she didn’t regret it for even a second. She hooked her arm through Sansa’s and together they walked along the upper open deck.

“You know,” Sansa opened in front of the elevators, looking to the moving numbers indicating the decks, “the kids club is doing a sleepover tomorrow night.”

“Really,” Margaery gave back, not trusting her voice anymore, not trusting herself anymore, and yet her body angled to Sansa by default as they stepped into the elevator, standing close to her, closer than appropriate or safe. “I suppose the girls would enjoy that.”

“I’m sure they would.”

Sansa’s voice was soft and in time with the closing elevator doors she closed the distance between them.

…

**_August 2011_ **

_“It’s weird,” Margaery insisted._

_Sansa laughed. “I know what you mean, but what I am saying is, I don’t know why. It shouldn’t be. Theoretically.”_

_“Because it’s… intimate,” Margaery looked down to Sofia. “A unique connection between mother and child.”_

_“You consider Catie your child too though,” Sansa pointed out._

_“Yes.”_

_“Scientific studies suggest that it’s even healthy for kids? Good for the immune system.”_

_Margaery made a face. “We can give them vitamins for that.”_

_“And historically speaking, it’s not unheard of. Was rather the common in any time throughout history.”_

_Margaery shifted to Sansa as much as the child nursing at her breast would allow her to. “Why does it feel like you are trying to convince me to try it?”_

_Sansa smiled and leaned in for a kiss. “I am not, I promise. I just find the concept interesting. Women have shared the duty of nursing among themselves throughout all centuries and cultures, and yet we both feel weirded out, by it to the point where we label the pumped milk so we don’t mix it up.”_

_They were seated on their bed, both of them nursing their daughters and somewhere along the line of discussing grocery shopping and their agenda for the weekend, this topic had come up and in all honesty didn’t quite leave Sansa anymore. The historian side of her was fascinated, the mom side of her slightly put off, which added to the fascination._

_“So okay,” Sansa went on, unable to let the topic go. “How about this. We both decided on nursing because it’s good for their immune system, best for them and so on. What if I had not been able to nurse. Would you have done it then for both of them?”_

_“It’s like you're asking me if I hate sleep.”_

_“It’s hypothetical. If we had them on the same schedule, Catie played along and you were producing breast milk like a prized cow.”_

_Margaery made a face. “Now that’s lovely.”_

_Sansa nudged her shoulder with her own, still smiling. “Humour me.”_

_“Honestly?” A small shake of her head followed. “I guess, yes. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it though. I mean, you know I love Catie with all my heart, but I already see myself reduced to a walking fridge with only Sofia here, and no matter how much I love the bond, or whatever, I cannot wait for those six months to be over and be in charge of my own body again.”_

_“You mean you miss wine,” Sansa laughed._

_“So much. I’m dreaming of grapes.”_

…

** Day 5 – At Sea **

_Date: Wednesday, May 22nd 2019_

_On our way from Braavos to Dragon Stone enjoy the view of the Braavosi Coastlands on the portside and we urge you not to miss the spectacular view that is the island of Dragonstone in the early morning hours._

_We wish you a magical day at sea and hope you enjoy yourself!_

...

“Catie asked me what I’d do with my night off,” Sansa said with a lazy smile. “I told her I’d get some reading done. And now I am actually worried that she might check on my progress tomorrow and ask about the book.”

“I am a few pages ahead of you,” Margaery gave back, sounding tired. “I could prep you.”

Sansa let her hands drift over the naked body beneath her. The one she knew almost as good as her own, every scar, every birthmark, even the tiniest unevenness in her skin. Returning to it, re-discovering it, her sensory memory, her muscle memory had set in within seconds, remembered every part of her. What made her laugh, what relaxed her, what made her cry out in pleasure.

“I think we can find better ways to spend our time.”

It wasn’t the evening, the night, either of them had planned, just what they had hoped for. Actually, they had made dinner reservations, planned to see some of the evening entertainment, perhaps followed by a walk along the open decks.

And then, Sansa had knocked on Margaery’s door to pick her up, had seen her in her red dress, and that had been it. The cabin door had closed behind her and she’d pushed her up against it kissing her as if to make up for all the years that she had missed kissing her.

Margaery’s fingers teased the curve of her hip. “That hike tomorrow will be nothing short of hell.”

It was past two am in the morning and sleep was yet the furthest thing on both their minds. Tomorrow would be a hellish long day, if they didn’t come to rest soon, with the hiking trip up to Dragon Stone and the subsequent castle tour, the girls had picked out for all of them, but tomorrow didn’t matter right now.

Being back with Margaery, lying with her here entangled in sheets was all that mattered.

“Lots and lots of coffee,” Sansa mused.

“I am talking about walking,” Margaery gave back with a chuckle. “After what you did to me tonight.”

Sansa laughed and kissed her clavicle. “You make it sound like I violated you.”

“You did a little, albeit in the most amazing way.” She curved her spine, stretched out, then pulled Sansa on top of herself, her limbs wrapping around her. “I suppose my body needs to adjust after six years. But I am getting the hang of it.”

Sansa got a hold of Margaery’s arms and stretched them over her head, holding them there and smirked as she rocked against her in a slow rhythm. “Nobody touched you like you needed to be touched?”

“Nobody touched me. Period.”

Was she… she couldn’t be serious.

“In six years? No one at all?”

Margaery laughed, tightening the hold of her legs around Sansa’s hips, urging her on to keep moving. “You sound outright scandalized by my non-existent sex life.”

“Let’s call it puzzled.”

It wasn’t like Sansa had slept around, been promiscuous or anything, but there had been other people, however briefly and not going anywhere it had been.

“And what exactly puzzles you, my darling?”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

Margaery tilted her head back and laughed in the most beautiful manner, in a way just proving the point Sansa was making. She was stunning, charming, kind, smart… Sansa had actually been surprised to find her single at all.

“I didn’t join a convent or cult, if that’s what you worried about. I have gone on dates. I just … after us… let’s say I was prudent to let anybody get close to myself or Sofia again.”

“So you could say I ruined you for all other women?” Sansa teased, rocking her hips forward with more vigour than before.

Joking about it, teasing her about it, was what she could handle. Thinking about how both their hearts had been broken to a point that had felt irredeemable… no. That was a talk for another time.

“Don’t be smug,” Margaery arched her head up to meet her in a kiss, pushed her hips up against her with it, tightened her legs around Sansa’s waist. “Now tell me, going by your reaction I can assume you have not quite been as … virtuous?”

“There have been people.”

“Plural?” Margaery’s lips attached herself to the juncture of Sansa’s neck.

“Two women, one man.”

Lips sucked a little harder at her skin, a second later teeth teased the sensitive flesh. “Anything serious?”

“No,” Sansa sighed and her head fell forward at Margaery’s ministrations. With what was left of her strength she slipped a hand between their bodies, pressed her fingers against, into, Margaery, was rewarded almost immediately with a moan from her. With a smile Sansa started rocking against her firmly. “You weren’t the only one who was ruined.”

**_May 2011_ **

_“Stay the night,” Sansa pleaded, her arms snug around her, to stop her from making attempts to leave. “It’s late. The girls are already asleep.”_

_Margaery sighed, snuggled into the warm body beneath herself. It was a fight she never won, a stupid and futile one, that she didn’t even know why she started it in the first place. The ride home in the taxi would take her at least twenty minutes, and there was no knowing if she’d get Sofia to sleep again tonight if she woke her now. Plus, the most important argument, the lack of the gorgeous redhead at her place._

_“I’ll need to borrow some of your clothes,” Margaery muttered tiredly. “And I will need to use your pump.”_

_“Now I don’t know if we’re ready for that,” Sansa laughed. “Sharing a breast pump.”_

_“Right,” Margaery hummed. “What’s the next step for us then? Shared diaper bag?”_

_Sansa drew in air through her teeth. “That’s rather personal too. I am worried you might mess up my system.”_

_“You have a system?” Margaery deadpanned and then chuckled._

_“I think I could settle on sharing wet wipes._ If _you agree to use my brand.”_

_Margaery wrapped her arms around her and laughed now. “I don’t know what’s weirder, that this is our post-sex talk, or that it actually attracts me to you that you know my brand of wet wipes.”_

_“If you think that’s hot wait until you hear me talk about pacifiers.”_

_They both giggled and shared a languid kiss before they parted and both landed on their backs, next to each other, only their hands entangled somewhere underneath the sheets between them._

_“I am hoping with all my heart that this is just the sleep deprivation talking,” Margaery said. “Because I might have to kill myself if that’s all the topics we can still come up with.”_

_Sansa looked at her for a long moment, bit her lower lip, then she pushed herself up and leaned against the headboard, the sheet pressed to her chest._

_“I have another topic.”_

_Honestly intrigued by her serious tone, Margaery looked up at her._

_“I want you to move in, I mean… if you want to.”_

_It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t crossed her mind already. Sansa’s place was ridiculously spacious, it was convenient for her to reach work, not to mention they were here all the damn time already anyway._

_“Are you sure about this?”_

_Sansa nodded eagerly. “I know it’s fast.”_

_It was. They had not been together for a full six months._

_“But this entire relationship has been starting unconventional, so who’s to say. I love you and I love Sofia. And I want you around all the time.”_

_“We are around all the time,” Margaery mused. “I suppose just more of our stuff would be around with us.”_

_Sansa beamed at her. “That’s a yes?”_

_“A tentative one,” Margaery interjected and pulled away from the kiss Sansa wanted to place against her lips. “I feel we should have this talk when we’re not completely sleep deprived.”_

_Sansa laughed and cuddled into her side. “Like that will happen any time soon.”_

…

** Day 6 – Dragonstone **

_Date: Wednesday, May 22_ _ nd _ _2019_

_Arrival: 07:00_

_Departure: 18:00 (all on board 17:30)_

_Dragonstone is a castle located on the island of the same name at the entrance to Blackwater Bay. Located below the Dragonmont and shaped from stone to look like dragons, Dragonstone was the original seat of House Targaryen in Westeros, and had been colonized and fortified as the westernmost outpost of the Valyrian Freehold._

_Enjoy a walk exploring the famous steep cliffs of the island or find out if there is something to the castle‘s dark reputation._

_…_

They had watched the sun rise over the sea as the castle of Dragonstone had appeared in the distance, from the bed, without even a minute of sleep for either of them, as tightly entangled as they had been all night. With that rising sun, with the room around them becoming more clearer again, the almost magical carelessness that had enthralled them throughout the night had disappeared, replaced by an ever so pressing reality.

Sometime around then, when the light had flooded the cabin, their touches had lost their sensual quality. Felt more comforting to Margaery if anything. Not unlike that last night they had spent together six years ago.

Doing what they had done, what their bodies felt made for had been easy, facing what would come now, the talk, Margaery would have given a lot to avoid that.

She ordered them breakfast over the phone, with Sansa still holding her tightly from behind, sunk back into her touch until the knock on the cabin door came a good thirty minutes later. Clad in her bathrobe she brought the trays to the table on the balcony, spread the food, the dishes and cups nicely out for them. Took a deep breath of still cool morning air and tried to sort her thoughts when Sansa came up from behind, likewise in a fluffy robe and pulled her tightly against herself.

“Like an image passing by,” she half hummed, half whispered against her ear and Margaery had to close her eyes to fight back tears.

“My love, my life,” she continued for Sansa in a choked voice.

Gentle hands turned her at her shoulders and tilted her chin up to look at her. “No tears, okay? Last night was _everything_.”

At least her face betrayed her oh-so-superior words, it was a small constellation for Margaery, that this was not only hard for her.

Margaery sighed. “I wish—”

“I know. Me too.”

Perhaps, had they shown a decent amount of self control, talked last night instead of being all over each other like animals, they could have predicted this moment, prevented it. Prevented the pain that came with being back in each other's arms, and yet ending up exactly where they had been six years ago already, only more complicated.

More entangled in their separate lives, their daughters rooted at other ends of the continent; more, so incredibly much more to lose if they tried and failed this time around.

They didn’t have to spell any of that out, it was painfully clear, had been ever since they laid eyes on another six days ago. It wasn’t the memory that had been painful in seeing each other again, it had been the fear of exactly this moment, that had ever been so inevitable.

Margaery allowed herself one more moment of leaning against Sansa, breathed her in, memorized how she felt against her, and then she let go and took a step back.

Only she wasn’t prepared for Sansa following after her, hands back on her waist, pulling her close and in for a deep kiss that left her breathless.

“We have three more days before we mourn this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into,” she said after, in between, admits, kissing her. “But not now.”

…

**_March 2011_ **

_Margaery's contractions had started when she had already been ten days over her due date, sitting at Sansa’s bedside, cooing over a four day old Catie. She'd tried to pass it off as back pain, had done a bit of walking up and down in the hospital room, had ignored Sansa’s expression of concern, her offers to call the doctor. It had taken her water breaking all over the linoleum floor for her to finally come to her senses._

_Sansa had been by her side through all of it. Had not slept a second through the twelve hours her contractions lasted, only left the four inevitable times to nurse Catie, and then she had been back by her side. Even when Sansa knew that she couldn’t do anything, that ten people sitting around the delivery room wouldn’t have made a difference in Margaery’s fear or pain._

_Margaery had clawed to her hand when the doctor had announced that the heartbeats of the child were slower than they liked, and ordered that a c-section was necessary._

_Against all authority that didn’t want a patient, a woman who had just given birth herself five days ago in the OR, Sansa had been by her side then too. Sat right there by her head, kissed her hand through the face mask, brushed away tears and with her had watched the incredible miracle of seeing a tiny little girl being pulled from her, had heard her first scream, smiled, laughed with Margaery about it in one moment and watched her eyes roll back in the next._

_The beeping of the monitor and the mask that was placed on Margaery's face was the last thing she would see of her for the next hours._

_They had allowed her to hold the tiny girl, for those hours, only because Sansa would have burned down the entire maternity ward if anyone had tried to take her from her and she sat stoically in the waiting area still two hours later when finally a doctor came and brought her to the recovery room, where they still had Margaery on a monitor and hooked up to more tubes and iv’s than Sansa cared to take note of._

_All she saw was Margaery’s blue eyes, in a pale face, and her soft smile as she saw her coming in._

_“Is she okay?” Margaery’s voice was raspy still, as Sansa placed the baby girl on her chest._

_“She’s perfect,” Sansa said and slipped onto a provided chair next to the bed, unable to hold back tears she had held back for hours. “She looks just like you.”_

_Sansa watched how Margaery craned her head to get a look at her daughter’s face, how tears of her own came to her eyes when she managed._

_Then she said the same thing that Sansa had said to Catie, only five days ago. “Hello.”_

…

The day was as hellish as they both knew it would be.

And the physical side, the exhaustion, the soreness that had been pleasant in the morning hours still was only a very, very small part of that.

The girls were as talkative as they had been every day, and Sansa felt herself reminded to days when the girls had barely been a year, smiling happily, wanting to be entertained after a sleepless night, where both her and Margaery had been taking turns napping in order to make it through the day somehow. They did a similar thing that day. Taking turns in soaking up and reacting to the bundles of information and questions that were thrown at them.

Those girls did. not. shut. up.

On the upside, mindless details about the sleepover and whatever they spotted in the scenery around them, was easier than thinking about all the things she still needed to think about at some point.

And then there was one more issue, that came up about halfway into their hike, when it was far too late to turn around.

From one moment to the next the whole path seemed to be sprinkled with lizards.

She’d jumped over the first one without anyone noticing, had tried then to keep her eyes not directed at the pathway, but as they were entering a more stony path, there was no escaping them anymore. Those fuckers were everywhere, and it was tearing on Sansa’s last remaining nerves. A constant looking for them, spotting one moving somewhere, freezing, fighting the instinct to claw onto Margaery and then somehow forcing herself to go on

She reached her breaking point when there were five of them right in their way, not making any moves to get out of their way even as they approached. Her one constellation was that the girls were far enough ahead to not see how she clawed onto Margaery -who looked at her like she’d lost her mind- squeezed her eyes shut and turned in the other direction.

“Can you…” She gestured into the direction where she assumed them.

“Are you serious?”

“They make me squeamish, okay?”

She heard a chuckle and then Margaery disappeared from her grasp to shoo them out of the way.

“You know they are more afraid of you than you are of them?”

“I really fucking doubt that right now,” Sansa bit out. 

“Language.” Margaery was ever too amused about her misery, for how sappy she had been along the rest of the way. She reached for Sansa’s hand then, giving her a comforting squeeze. “All clear.”

“Thank you,” Sansa offered a small smile as she tentatively peeked to the ground and found it as empty as Margaery had promised.

Margaery made no intentions to let go of her hand and Sansa did not either, and so Margaery stepped ahead along the small path, making occasional stops to shoo the lizards away.

“How do I not know about this?” Margaery wondered after a while.

“A phobia is not exactly something you brag about if you do not have to,” Sansa answered, feeling her breathing go a little easier, a little securer on Margaery’s hand as she walked ahead of her. “I don’t know any of yours.”

Coming to a short stop, Margaery spun around and looked at her daringly. “Bold of you to assume I have any.”

Sansa gave a tired smile. “Of course, how dare I. Sorry.”

“Mom!”

“Mama!”

Catie and Sofia came rushing towards them and they let go of one another at last, and Sansa dearly wished that she didn’t have to. Had been, aside from her irrational fear of small reptiles, enjoying this. This play pretend, where things weren’t as complicated between them as they made them out to be, where they could just pick up where they left off. But running towards them came the reason, the two reasons, why that was a bad idea.

“Look!” Sofia smiled brightly and lifted up her casted arm - with a fucking lizard on top of it.

Her following words of how it enjoyed the colour Sansa didn’t hear anymore because her fight-or-flight set in a rush of adrenaline and she turned around rushing several meters backwards.

“Oh my Gods, take that away!”

It got only worse when Margaery bit a smirk away and reached out to carefully touch the animals head. “At least someone likes the colour.”

“Are you okay, mom?” Catie piped up with half a smile, half a frown.

“I’m… I have… Seven hells, could you please just take that thing off of her?”

The girls looked puzzled and Margaery ever too amused. At last it was Margaery who picked it off -with her bare hands- lifted it up for a moment to look at it, a moment where Sansa honestly thought she might pass out, and then carried it a few metres away, setting it down on the ground and watching it shimmy with another smirk sent in Sansa’s direction.

Meanwhile Catie had approached Sansa and looked at her curiously. “Are you afraid of them?”

Admitting this to her child, having her child see her in such an irrational fear was the last thing she had wanted, and still she gave a small, bashful nod. “They make me a little nervous.”

“But they don’t do anything. They are not poisonous or anything.”

“Fears do not always make sense, honey.” Sansa took the small hand that stretched out to her.

“All clear,” Margaery announced again when she approached them together with Sofia. “You okay, Sans?”

She nodded, even though it wasn't really. She was tired, still anxious and the continuous flow of adrenaline through her system did the rest. She wanted to be out of here, she wanted to sleep and then only lay eyes on and interact with Margaery again when she had her full brain capacity.

“It’s only about an hour more to go,” Margaery reassured, but of course saw through the exterior she had put on for the sake of the kids. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you two go ahead of us and try to clear our way of all little friends and then we have good chances to make it back a little quicker and get Sansa here to safety.”

The girls rushed off, seemingly excited for the prospect of getting their hands on more of those little things -she’d scrub Catie down with sanitizer head to toe, as soon as they were back on the ship- and the moment they were at a proper distance, Margaery’s hand was back in her own.

“Come on, you damsel in distress.”

…

**_March 2011_ **

_Sansa plopped down on the couch next to her with a groan. “Why is everything so hard?”_

_She lifted her feet up on the couch table where Margaery’s were already propped and only slowly the muscles in her back started to relax as did her face._

_“Because we are creating life. No one said that would be easy.” Margaery mustered a half-smile and reached for her hand._

_“No one said it would be this hard either.”_

_“Don’t be grumpy.”_

_“Easy for you to say.” She played with her fingers for a few seconds then sighed and held them up in comparison. “Your hands have not swollen up to twice their size.”_

_Margaery inspected their hands next to one another. “That’s not twice the size.”_

_“I have sausages as fingers.” She nodded towards their feet and wiggled toes that were covered in fluffy socks. “And sausage toes for that matter.”_

_“You have lovely feet and hands.” As to prove a point Margaery kissed the back of her hand._

_“Liar.”_

_“Am not.” Margaery chuckled and gave her a nudge._

_Okay so it was a bit of a lie. In those last weeks of her pregnancy she had sort of swollen up with water retention that no special herbal tea in the world could cure._

_“You know it took me an hour this morning to put my shoes on?”_

_“I am sure it wasn’t an hour.”_

_Sansa huffed and crossed her arms over her belly. “Well it wasn’t just two minutes either.”_

_“My poor girl.” Margaery cuddled into her side, as far as her own massive stomach would allow her and kissed her jaw line and a small line down her neck, her hand landing on Sansa’s thigh._

_“You cannot be serious,” Sansa muttered, pulling away and glaring at her._

_Unaffected by the rejection, Margaery rested her head on Sansa’s shoulder. “You cannot blame me for trying.”_

_Sansa huffed. “I just told you how swollen, unattractive and uncomfortable I feel and you think that sex is anywhere on my mind in that.”_

_“I thought I’d be making a point in how you are still very much attractive, and you know an orgasm is always good for the mood.”_

_“You’re just horny.”_

_She was. To a frustrating amount. Her libido hyped up on baby hormones was something that all the books said should not last much longer than the end of the second trimester, but had only marginally decreased for herself._

_“Can’t it be both?” She watched Sansa’s sour face for a moment longer. “Want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”_

_The physical discomfort wasn’t something new, neither was the water retention. Margaery was easier off in both things. Compared to Sansa, and if it wasn’t for the watermelon of a belly she had under her shirt, nothing really had changed significantly for her. She still went about her life as she always had, did yoga, met with friends. The epitome of your glowing pregnant woman, Sansa had said the other day, and then referred to herself as Jabba the Hutt a moment later._

_“It’s just…,” Sansa didn’t seem to know how to put it in words exactly and Margaery reached for her hand again, giving it a gentle reassuring squeeze, letting her know that she was there, that she wouldn’t judge her. “I really took an hour this morning to put on my shoes. Because I cried for like half an hour after finally getting the first on.”_

_Margaery patiently waited for her to continue, her thumb stroking over slightly swollen hand in her own._

_“I… you are supposed to have someone around for this stuff, to help you, you know? And I always thought that I can do this by myself, but what if I can’t? Things won’t get easier once she’s born, but only about a million times harder. What if I can’t do it on my own? What if I am not enough for her?”_

_Margaery waited for another moment to see if there was more coming, but only a tear rolled down Sansa’s cheek and she hung her head, letting Margaery know that it was time for her to spring into action._

_“First of all,” she started, brushing a tear away gently. “Don’t listen to any of those thoughts right now, okay? You are hormonal as hell and nothing that your brain produces is very proactive. You will be a wonderful mom.”_

_“How can you be so sure of that?”_

_“For one,” Margaery continued. “ You have that nurturing stuff so naturally to yourself, it makes me green with envy. You cook, you bake, you sew… you’re such a natural homemaker.”_

_“Great,” Sansa sniffed. “So I’d make a good fifties housewife.”_

_“Let me finish, you hormonal mess.” She placed a kiss against pouting lips. “You are you. You are warm, nurturing; you are smart. I’ve seen you fight for those you care for like a lioness protecting her cubs--”_

_“A she-wolf,” Sansa corrected, still sniffing._

_“A she-wolf then.” With a good humoured roll of her eyes Margaery pushed herself up, set her feet on the floor and angled herself towards Sansa, taking a hold of both of her hands. “But most importantly you are not alone. You have your family. Your siblings… I can see that a mom is a phone call away from moving in with you. But also I am here. With whatever you need.”_

_“I don’t want to spring this on you.” Sansa shook her head and I don’t want to have to rely on you is what she meant. “You will have your own little-one to care for.”_

_“So we’ll help each other.” Margaery smiled at her encouragingly. “We have been doing Lamaze class together and scheduled our ultrasounds back to back. Do you think you’ll get rid of me now? Hells, I will need you just as much, because tell you what, as soon as this one,” she looked down to her own belly, “will need solid food, I am screwed if I don’t want to raise him or her on take-out.”_

_Glassy eyes blinked at her and the smallest hint of a smile tugged on her lips at last. “You really think that will work?”_

_Margaery brought both of Sansa’s hands up to her lips to kiss them. “I have no doubt that it will get messy, but we’ll get the hang of it. It will be a happy mess.” She made a pregnant pause, hesitating with her next words even if they had been rooted in her chest wanting to come out for weeks now. “I’ll love your little girl as much as I love you.”_

_And at last Sansa smiled._

…

** Day 7 – Gulltown **

_Date: Friday, May 23_ _ nd _ _2019_

_Arrival: 09:00_

_Departure: 15:00 (all on board 14:30)_

_Gulltown is the major port city of the Vale of Arryn. It is located in a fine natural harbor at the northern tip of the Bay of Crabs, southeast of the Eyrie and south of nearby Runestone. It is the largest settlement in the Vale, but is much smaller than King's Landing, Lannisport, and Oldtown._

_Where once the noble House Grafton had its seat, you can find white sandy beaches along a thriving beach promenade._

_…_

“Who brings a sewing kit on a beach trip?”

Sansa looked up at her briefly with drawn up eyebrows. “Lucky for you, I do.” She looked back down one hand circling around her ankle. “Now hold still.”

“Easy for you to say,” Margaery said under her breath. “No one is poking around your foot with a needle.”

“I can stop,” Sansa offered, but didn’t stop. “I am not the one with sea-urchin spines all over her foot.”

Pouting Margaery leaned back and let her continue, bit the insides of her cheeks when the thin needle went into her skin. “It seems that Tyrell women do not fare so well on this trip.”

“Seems like it,” Sansa mumbled, her tongue darting out the side of her mouth and then smiled triumphantly, pulling the spine out with the help of a pair of tweezers Margaery had found in her bag, she held it up for Margaery to see. “There we go. See how they're formed like little hooks?”

Margaery made a face.

“Compared to you, Sofia was a far more grateful patient.”

Now Margaery smiled, despite the needle that was back at poking at her heel. “She told me you sang to her.”

“I hope this is not a request to sing to you.” With that she reverted the second spine, wiping it on a tissue she’d spread next to her on the beach chair.

“It couldn’t hurt.”

“You’re an adult, sing to yourself.”

Smiling Margaery rested her chin down on her folded up arms. She was lying belly down, with her head at the foot end of the beach chair, both her feet propped in Sansa’s lap who sat at the head end and watching in the distance where the girls were sitting at the edge of the shore, giggling when a wave came and let them sink into the sand.

“I have been thinking,” Sansa came out about ten spines later. “We could do this again. Go on vacation together.”

Margaery flung a look over her shoulder, found her just as concentrated as her foot as she had been before. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sansa confirmed and abandoned her work for a moment and looked at Margaery. “I mean those two have already exchanged numbers and emails. There is no separating them anymore, and it will only be a matter of time before they get the ideas in her head to visit during summer break.”

Margaery watched the girls and how they sat there, still laughing.

“We never should have separated them in the first place.”

Or us.

“I know… But it was the only—”

“I know.” Margaery fell silent and enjoyed the feeling of fingers caress over her ankle. “And what about us?”

“We’ll … do the same? Exchange numbers and emails, visit, go on another vacation together. All four of us.”

“See how things go?” Margaery concluded.

“Exactly,” Sansa nodded, her hand wrapping tightly around Margaery’s ankle now. “We moved too quickly the last time. We were living together and had a family to take care of within six months of being together.”

“And sleep-deprived for all of it,” Margaery added with a smirk, then grew more serious, focused her eyes back forward. “I thought about that more than I should have. What things could have been like had the girls not been a factor. Had we met and moved ahead like a normal couple’s pace.”

“Me too,” Sansa admitted. “First date followed by more dates, lots and lots of sex, moving in together, getting engaged and married, before kids ever become a factor.”

Sansa’s fingers started to caress up to the pit of her knee and back down.

“I wouldn’t want to change it though,” Margaery concluded. “None of it. Not how we started and our stupid stomachs would get in the way of making out, or watching the girls sleep in the same bed, watching them play together—you remember when Catie was the first to crawl?”

Sansa nodded laughing. “And Sofia just was scandalized that her sister was moving away and just like that started to crawl a day later.”

“We had good and happy times. I wouldn’t want to change those for anything in the world.”

A hand reached out for Margaery’s prompting her to look at her. “And hopefully even better yet to come.”

…

**_January 2011_ **

_“So, I feel like I have to ask.”_

_Sansa froze at the voice from behind her, dropped her notes she had just been putting away into her backpack back on the table._

_“Is it mine?”_

_She twisted around to a smirking brunette with a roll of her eyes and a smile of her own. “How long have you been sitting on that one?”_

_“I’ve always wanted to say that.” Margaery smirked, holding on to the strap of her bag with one hand, the other one resting on her stomach. “And I really could have not forgiven myself if I had let this opportunity pass.”_

_The joke had broken the ice, just as Margaery had intended and Sansa smiled at her, when she’d struggled throughout the whole afternoon to do as much as look her in the eye._

_Her Lamaze class was the last place on earth where she’d expected to run into the woman she’d had a one-night-stand with, and when Margaery had arrived -late, with heated cheeks, and tousled curls- Sansa had forgotten how any of her normal body functions worked. Unable to look at her and anywhere but her for the entire remains of the class._

_She watched how Margaery bit her lower lip and then she took a step towards her. “You know, I was just about to go grab myself some dinner, and there is this lovely little bistro just down the street. I’ve been thinking maybe you’d want to come along?”_

_Sansa did._

_And they were still there three hours after they’d shared one of the best pizzas Sansa had had in her lifetime followed by two portions of chocolate cake and hot chocolates._

_“Okay, officially no more room for both the baby and anymore food,” Sansa laughed, dropping her fork on the table and wiping at her lips with a paper napkin._

_“Agreed,” Margaery gave back and sunk a little further into her side of the booth. “I was full ten minutes ago, but food is pretty much the only pleasure I still get these days.”_

_“I know what you mean,” Sansa agreed with a nod. “No wine.”_

_“No sushi.”_

_“No weed.”_

_“_ You _smoke weed?”_

_“I’d like to have the option.”_

_Margaery laughed and then something else slipped into her eyes. “No sex.”_

_The look out of blue eyes that came a long with the words brought a heat to Sansa’s cheeks. Not in a bashful way. But she genuinely felt her body temperature rise, remembering what sex with Margaery had been like._

_“None of that either, no.”_

_Margaery looked down to the napkin she’d been rolling between her fingers. “So I take it there is no dad or … partner around?”_

_“There is. I mean. There is a dad. But he isn’t around. Or interested. In the baby. Or me. Or sex.”_

_Margaery smiled slyly at her. “What a fool.”_

_More warmth streamed through Sansa, settled between her thighs and stayed there as a firm pressure._

_“What about you?” Sansa had her suspicion that Margaery’s situation was similar to her own, but needed it confirmed before her mind could spin that any further._

_“There never was anyone,” Margaery said. “I decided to do this on my own from the very beginning.”_

_“That’s brave.”_

_Margaery looked down and brushed a hand over her stomach, with a subdued smile. “Yeah we’ll see about that.” A moment later eyes regained the intensity from before. “So… about that sex.”_

_Sansa chuckled, genuinely liking the straight-forwardness Margaery brought to the table. “Are you trying to pick me up just after Lamaze class?”_

_“That depends on whether you’re interested or not.”_

_Sansa was interested._

…

“So, we have an idea.”

“The best idea!”

“One that you can’t say no to.”

“Please don’t say no!”

Neither of them prepared in any way for the energy and enthusiasm of two girls coming up at them at once, Margaery and Sansa looked at their daughters curiously, still seated at the dinner table over half eaten dessert and shared a smile thereafter.

“Do tell,” Margaery said, pulling Sofia close with an arm around the girls shoulders.

“We have been thinking—” Sofia started.

“Because it’s our last night here,” Catie interrupted.

“And that should be special.”

“The most special,” Sofia went on.

Sansa caught Margaery’s eyes, recognized the hint of melancholy that had been there all evening.

Yes, their last night. For Gods knew how long. The girls had a point, it should indeed be special.

“Now don’t keep us in suspense,” Sansa requested. “What’s this ominous plan or yours?”

“We want to have a sleepover!” Sofia announced with a bright smile.

Margaery frowned. “Like, in the future? Back home?”

Sofia rolled her eyes. “No, Mama.” Then she added after a moment of musing. “But, yes, that too actually.”

“But first tonight,” Catie chimed back in, peering at Sansa. “In our cabin.”

Margaery and Sansa shared a quick look, neither of them entirely un-intrigued by the suggestion. They had wanted to spend their last night together. Having a sleepover could indeed be fun.

“So all of us?” Sansa inquired further.

“Please, mom,” Catie huffed. “You realize that there are things we do not need parents around for.”

Margaery laughed and Sansa frowned, barely suppressing a smile of her own though, at the dramatic wording.

“You are not making the convincing argument, you think you’re making,” Sansa said with a brush through her daughter's hair.

“We’ll be good,” Sofia promised. “We just want to watch movies and stuff.”

It was the “and stuff” that still had Sansa skeptical and hesitant, even when her brain was already mapping out what exactly Margaery and her would be able to do with this new found opportunity of having the evening to themselves.

“You can check in on us as. Our cabin is just one deck above, and we can call through the cabin’s phone if we need anything.”

“So you are occupying our cabin,” Sansa concluded. “And what am Margaery and I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know.” Catie shrugged. “Adult stuff.”

Margaery nearly choked on the sip of wine she’d been taking.

…

**_November 2010_ **

_Margaery blinked her eyes open to the sight of a bare back; woken by her shifting out of her arms, sitting up in bed, the sheets still pulled to her chest and she couldn’t help but smile._

_“Are you trying to sneak out on me?”_

_Sansa had a soft smile on her lips as she turned around to her. “You caught me.”_

_Margaery took her in for a moment how she sat there, pale skin, red hair falling in long waves over her back, hiding what Margaery had discovered as a gorgeously defined neck and back. She reached out, drew fingers along her shoulder, down to her hand, holding on._

_“You don’t have to leave yet.”_

_“Except that I sort of do.” There was a hint of sadness in her eyes._

_“Do you have work?” Margaery wondered, playing with her fingers. “It’s Sunday.”_

_“It’s not that.” Sansa breathed, fought to keep her face under control. “What I said-- what we agreed last night? It’s still relevant. This is a one time thing. I don’t have room in my life right now for anything more than this.”_

_“Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean you have to sneak out at the crack of dawn.”_

_It would have been for the best, Margaery thought, to let her leave and don’t look back. It couldn’t be more than this, than last night, she knew that. She didn’t know Sansa’s reasons, didn’t know much more than her first name and the few details she’d learned during the what they’d talked about last night. Maybe she was in a relationship, maybe she was only still finding herself and this was the verge of a gay panic, maybe she just had a train to catch. It didn’t matter. Margaery’s own reasons didn’t matter. At least not right now._

_She didn’t want her to leave. Not yet._

_Margaery sat up, and shifted closer, placing a kiss against a naked shoulder. “Please don’t go yet.”_

_Sansa closed her eyes at the touch, then a second later twisted and kissed Margaery on the lips, maneuvered both of them back on the mattress a small mess out of limbs until they found their position._

_She came up with laboured breathing, hovering over Margaery’s face. “This can’t happen again. My life is too complicated right now.”_

_“Fine for me.” Margaery gently scratched her nails down her back and curved up against Sansa. “But if it’s the last time ever we should make it memorable.”_

…

It was hard not to stare, when Sansa slipped into the bar stool next to her, even harder when she crossed legs that were in a ridiculously short skirt, and so Margaery didn’t bother trying but gave long legs an appreciative once-over.

“Nice skirt.”

Brightly red painted lips smiled and took in Margaery’s outfit, lingering at the plunging neckline. “Nice dress.”

Margaery gestured for the waiter, her eyes going back to Sansa’s legs the second she had ordered. “Care to tell me with what intentions you packed that skirt?”

“Always be prepared?” Sansa quipped through a bashful smile.

Fuelled by the way Sansa smiled at her, by the glass of champagne that she’d already had waiting here, Margaery leaned forward, a hand landing on Sansa’s knee and hesitated only a second smiling at her up close, before placing a lingering kiss against her lips.

“Excellent thinking.”

Sansa kissed her back, hummed into the touch. “Right back at ya.”

They had wanted to take it slow. This was not slow. This was diving head-first, blindly back into familiar waters, and Margaery came up breathless.

Only pulling apart when Sansa’s glass of champagne was served, Margaery played with the stem of her own and looked at her. She didn’t want to let her go, didn’t want to say goodbye. Not now. Not ever again. But it helped, knowing that this time wasn’t forever.

They knew it would be a while until they’d see each other again. But that was endurable. Because now they knew that _they_ still existed, that they would find their way back to each other.

“Did the girls settle in okay?”

Sansa nodded. “With enough snacks that should have them on a sugar high for days to come.”

“Fantastic,” Margaery chuckled, her eyes fell to the black briefcase Sansa had brought with her. “Are we having a business meeting I am not aware of? Should I have brought my lawyer?”

“I brought those pictures of Catie that you wanted to see.”

Margaery leaned in, her elbow propped on the bar counter while Sansa drew back the protective cover and turned the tablet on.

She frowned at the artsy background picture and rolled her head back in an annoyed manner. “Damn it, I brought Catie’s.”

“She has her own tablet?” Margaery pursed her lips, looking amused as Sansa rolled her eyes.

“Judge me once you had your trillionth fight about her wanting to read when you need to get some work done,” she typed over the icons of the tablet. “She might have some of them on here anyway, wait let me—"

She silenced, and paled at a speed that Margaery had never witnessed before.

“Sansa?”

Sansa gave the tablet a little push letting Margaery see a picture of themselves. Their younger selves. The girls barely older than a year in their laps, all four of them smiling.

Sansa swiped to the right and found another one; Margaery sleeping on the bed with the two girls climbing on top of her.

And another one, both girls on the couch, dressed up in dresses Catelyn had made for them.

One taken hours after Catie’s birth, Margaery still very big and pregnant next to her on the bed smiling into the camera.

Margaery knew each and everyone of those images. Had them still saved away in a password protected zip file on her own computer, had looked at them occasionally. Every year on Catie’s birthday. Or after one too many glasses of wine.

But that wasn’t what this was about. This wasn’t why Sansa looked like she’d seen a ghost.

Margaery pulled the tablet out of shaking hands towards her and swiped over the screen a couple of times, only slowly comprehending what this meant, which each picture of her younger self, of them, of their family staring back at her.

She swallowed and gripped the screen tightly between her hands, looking at Sansa. “Are you _sure_ that this is Catie’s tablet?”

“Yes.” Sansa pulled the device out of her hands, mindlessly swiping over the screen looking in different folders, in different apps. “It has all her books, her games, all her music... I… _fuck_...”

She went back to the folder she’d first stumbled upon, and Margaery spotted the number at the bottom of it. Over six hundred pictures. Portraits, group photos, selfies, screenshots from Facebook.

“ _Any_ chance that they got there by mistake from a cloud or something?”

Any chance Catie hasn’t seen those, she meant.

“Like, I would have saved any of these in a cloud,” Sansa absentmindedly shook her head as in instinct she hit the icon for the email app.

Nothing could have prepared them for the dozens of emails going back and forth over the course of the past half year.

They leaned over the tablet together, scanning the preview of the messages, reading only Sofia’s name over and over again in the sender's line.

“So excited to finally meet you and your mom! I will not sleep a second tonight! Just one more day,” Margaery read out loud of the last email.

She reached over Sansa’s shaking hands holding on to the tablet and scrolled further down, picking one from about three months ago.

“Get this! Uncle Loras will help us. He says he will find a way to convince Mama that the cruise is a good idea. I know your aunt says that it’s not a good idea, but I am sure we can make it work,” Sansa finished reading and looked at Margaery in something that could only be considered shocked bewilderment.

“Arya and Loras,” Margaery breathed and drew a circle over her temple. “This is about the only thing that makes sense right now.”

“I will kill her.”

Margaery reached for the tablet again and scrolled all the way down to the first email sent from Catie to Sofia and started reading.

“Hello, my name is Catie, I am seven years old and live in Winterfell. I know that you don’t know me, but I think that we used to. Sort of. I am sorry, I know this sounds strange. I found a bunch of pictures on my grandpa’s computer the other week (one I will add to this mail). The red-haired woman is my mom, Sansa, and I am the baby. There are a bunch of those. Literally hundreds. And I think you are the other baby and the other woman is your mom. If I am wrong, sorry again for bothering you. I hope you reply to me soon. And maybe help me figure this out. Regards, Catie.”

“What the actual fuck.” Sansa was still shaking her head, blindly reached for her untouched glass of champagne and took a large sip.

“She never said anything?” Margaery wondered. “Not even hinted?”

“Not one word.”

“Sofia?”

Margaery shook her head. “Well, obviously she asked Loras at some point.” Who was dead. More than dead.

Sansa thought about it for only two seconds longer and then went to her feet, the tablet in hand. “We need to talk to the girls.”

In less than one minute they were five decks lower, in front of the cabin door behind which they could hear laughter, giggling. And in the blind activism they had fallen into they now halted abruptly. Margaery caught the way Sansa twisted and turned the key card between her fingers and reached for it.

“It’ll be okay,” she promised, not knowing, just hoping. “They know and they’re still talking to us. That’s something.”

Sansa nodded slowly, some determination coming back to her face. “I mean, we knew we’d have to have this conversation one day.” She shot Margaery a look, something between a smile and a grimace. “I just thought it would happen on our terms… Not being parent-trapped by the most manipulative eight year olds in the world.”

Margaery brought their joined hands up to her lips for a kiss. “It will be okay,” she promised again, with more conviction this time.

Sansa took a deep breath and then raised the card opening the door with a beeping sound.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last but not least -after a small heatwave drained all of my creativity temporarily- here we are with the epilogue.  
> Fingers crossed it meets your guys' expectations. 
> 
> Let me say one more time thank you for the overwhelming feedback I received for the story!   
> As well a deserved thank you to twentyfivepercent for beta-ing one more time and prompting me into this slightly longer and clearer epilogue.

They say that three moves are as bad as one fire. Looking around the chaos of half unpacked boxes, baskets, disassembled furniture it was hard to argue with it. Actually, Sansa wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t have preferred the fire. It would be days, if not weeks, before this place would resemble a home, and starting from scratch and just buying new stuff seemed like the less time intensive alternative.

“That’s _a lot_ of Tupperware,” came the comment from her left.

Sansa looked up from the wine glasses she’d unwrapped and placed on the kitchen counter. “You can never have enough Tupperware.”

Sofia took a bunch of lids out of a box and placed them on the counter, giving her a sceptical look. “I don’t think Mama will agree with that.”

With a gentle smile Sansa watched how Sofia threw a glance back into the box at her feet, with something that almost resembled concern, before leaning down and retrieving another dozen multi-coloured lids out of it.

“I heard her tell uncle Renly that is an overpriced waste of space.”

“At least then it’s one thing we won’t have a double set of,” Sansa pointed out, with a nod to the mixed together variation of glasses that had collected all over the counter surface.

“I guess.” Sofia didn’t appear convinced and kept on frowning as she continued to unload the carton box.

“She’ll learn to appreciate it once all of those are filled with home cooked meals,” Sansa assured. “My cooking has always had the power to let her forget nonsense principals.”

Sofia appeared thoughtful for another couple of seconds, then smirked. “You’ll have to teach me then, for the next time I get myself in trouble.”

She had to suppress a smile of her own. Always the strategic thinker that one. “I’d prefer if you didn’t get yourself in trouble.”

“Mom, please,” Sofia kept on smirking. “We all know that is wishful thinking.”

Now Sansa did smile. Not only for the self assurance of her statement and tone.

It still held a dash of awkwardness, having Sofia call her “Mom”, and probably would be for a while to come, nevertheless it brought Sansa a sense of joy that was hard to put into words. The same happened every time Catie called Margaery “Mama”.

It had been upon the girls insistence. Of course. Ever too mature for their age, they had brought it up a couple of weeks ago when they’d last been all together, after putting their signatures down for buying the house. In the little café where they’d sat down over cookies, coffee and hot chocolate the girls had almost solemnly made the declaration that both of them would call them “Mom” and “Mama” from now on. Sansa’s and Margaery’s carefully reminded that they should not feel obliged to do so, just because they were going to live together, that it was something that should not so much be forced, but grow naturally. Their daughters had waved off instantly.

They were a family, Catie had said.

And even if they had not always known it, both of them had always been their mothers, Sofia had added.

Well and, really, how could you argue with that.

Still, Sansa couldn’t let herself be lured in by the term of endearment, not entirely at least. She sent Sofia a look. “I’d appreciate some effort to stay out of trouble still.”

“I did it!” Catie appeared in the kitchen door frame and her triumphant announcement saved Sofia from making any promises she wouldn’t be able to keep. Her excitement was palpable, as she bounced back and forth on her feet. “TV is all set up. Is Mama back yet?”

“Not yet,” Sofia sighed.

Catie visibly deflated in her enthusiasm and frowned. “She’s been gone almost an hour. Are we sure everything is alright?”

“Positive,” Sansa promised with a nod.

She took four glasses off the counter, stacked them into each other, and handed them to Catie. In the same swift movement she opened the fridge and pulled out two bottles, holding them out for Sofia.

“Why don’t you two set up the living room, so once she’s here we won’t lose any more time.”

Another fifteen minutes later, and with Sansa almost out of things to give the girls to do, she heard the front door open, not two heartbeats after that Margaery stood in the kitchen with four large pizza boxes and a bunch of small containers with dessert and other snacks on top.

“People have lost their minds,” she declared, her eyes searching for a spot on the kitchen counter where she could place the food. When she didn’t find one, she simply handed all of it off to Sansa, commenced peeling out of her jacket, and fixing her hair that had fallen out of her ponytail. “You’d think that on Saturday evening after six, they would have better things to do than crowding the city centre.” She paused after a look around. “So, you’ve made… progress?”

Carefully pushing a couple of glasses aside Sansa placed the food down on one of the counters and braced her hands into her sides, also taking a look through the chaotic kitchen. “I think so? I’ve managed five boxes.”

“And you thought not putting stuff into cupboards right away would be more efficient?”

“I thought you would like an input on where things go.”

Margaery smirked and placed her arms around Sansa. “Darling, please do not take this the wrong way, but we both know that this will be your realm and yours only.”

Sansa’s hands landed on either side of Margaery’s waist. “And here Sofia was worried you’d take offense in my Tupperware collection.”

Blue eyes darted to the spot where dozens of lids and containers were spread out and Margaery sighed. “I don’t love it. But I can live with it as long as you promise to keep all the coffee utensils at a spot where I can reach them without climbing the counters.”

“Seems reasonable.” Sansa gave her a quick kiss, and smiled when Margaery didn’t let her go right away but caught up for more, arms tightening their hold.

“Have I told you yet, how happy I am?” Margaery looked up at her with sparkling eyes.

“Only about once per hour today,” Sansa teased. “But you’ve been gone for over an hour, so I think it’s time again.”

Margaery smirked and interrupted every one of her next words with a kiss. “I am the most, unbelievably and insanely happy.”

Sansa captured her face between her hands, finding her lips in a long and slow kiss. “So am I. More than I could ever put into words.”

It had been a long way to get here. Not always the smoothest, or easiest. Rebuilding a relationship to each other, and as a family, at a long distance nonetheless, had been exhausting at times.

After that first vacation on board the cruise ship, they had gone on two more trips together that same year. On both of these, the girls had been nothing short of insufferable in trying to get them back together, to the point where they had to sit them down and lay out for them that it was also for their sake that they were taking things slow.

It had taken three extended visits in King’s Landing and Winterfell, countless phone calls and conversations via text, for Sansa and Margaery to reach that conclusion between themselves. That _they_ wanted to give their relationship another chance, and that had come along with a whole bunch of other problems.

There was the question of living arrangements. The question of work. A fight between the girls. Two trial months -one in King’s Landing, one in Winterfell- of living together, all four of them.

The last being the most stressful, having both Sansa and Margaery close to thinking that it would not work after all, but by the end of it, more certain than ever that for all of them to be together was the one and only right thing to do.

And after another stressful six months of job interviews, house hunting, and at last moving here they were. In their house. As a family. After almost eight years apart, they would all live under the same roof again, and while Sansa had no doubt that this would come with its ups and downs, she was too unbelievably and insanely happy. More than she’d ever been.

As usual they were only granted a short time of losing themselves in one another, before the sound of sock clad feet on the wood floor and a long drawn “Finally!” prompted them to abandon each other’s lips and instead turn to the two nine year olds lingering in the door frame.

“Are you coming already?” Catie asked.

Her sister promptly gave her a gentle push. “They were having a moment.”

“We live together now. They can have all the moments they want all day long later.”

Ten minutes later the four of them were seated on the living room couch together. Catie and Sofia cuddled up in the centre, Margaery to their left, Sansa to their right, a whole bunch of food on the impromptu table out of unpacked boxes in front of them, a large blanket spread over all of them.

“Everyone ready?” Sansa looked between the two girls. “Everyone has food, everyone has something to drink and is tucked in? No one needs to pee?”

“Yes,” Catie confirmed and cuddled deeper into the pillows of the couch.

“Same,” Sofia said with a nod, taking a bite off her pizza slice.

Sansa’s eyes darted towards Margaery and she reached out over the backrest behind the girls and got a hold of her hand.

“How about you, Marg?”

Margaery smirked and pulled the hand holding hers to her lips for a lingering kiss. “I am perfectly happy.”

With a smile of her own, Sansa reached for the remote and started the slide show on the TV.

The first picture was always the same. Sansa and Margaery sitting on a couch together, feet propped up high on pillows on the table, both of them about twelve months pregnant with large bellies.

“This was three days before Catie was born,” Sansa started the retelling the way she always did.

“Uncle Loras took that picture because he said we looked like two hens sitting on our eggs,” Margaery continued and gave Sofia a small nudge. “I could barely sit, because your head was pressing up against my ribs and you kept on kicking so hard I thought you wanted to stomp your way out of me.”

“And you,” Sansa tickled Catie’s side. “Had the most fun using my bladder as a trampoline. I had to pee every five minutes.”

The next picture was a selfie, Sansa in a hospital gown, hair wet, her face sweaty, looking down at a screaming, smushed-faced Catie, with Margaery next to her, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“That was within ten minutes after you were born,” Margaery explained with a look to Catie. “Two o’clock in the morning.”

“I hate that we have to keep that one in,” Sansa complained, dropping the slice of pizza back into the box, already reaching for the remote.

“You know I love that picture,” Margaery returned, sounding wistful.

“Yes, but I do not get _why_.” Sansa made a face, thinking one more time that there should be some sort of law against capturing women on pictures within the first hour after giving birth. “Look at me. I am bathed in sweat and you can still see the red spots from pushing all over my face.”

“But you look so happy,” Margaery returned.

That silenced Sansa for a moment, but then she shook her head nevertheless. “Still.”

She hit the button and a new picture appeared.

“I love this one!” Sofia exclaimed immediately.

It was one that had been taken shortly after Sofia’s birth. Their hospital beds had been pushed together and the two girls were propped on pillows between them.

“Why though?” Catie wondered. “Here _you_ look all red and spotty.”

Sofia shrugged. “It’s our first picture together. Of all of us.”

“I could barely keep my eyes open for the time the nurse took it,” Sansa recalled. “I was exhausted.”

Margaery squeezed her hand. “She’d been by my side for a half a day while I was in labour and waited another two hours for me to get out of the OR. I was the one to give birth that day and yet your mom was the one who needed to rest after.”

Before the memories of that day, the fear she’d felt for Margaery in those hours could return to her, Sansa switched to the next image.

A carefully arranged studio image, both girls on a white fur in beige onesies. Sofia on her side, sleeping, little fists curled up to her face, Catie next to her on her back, face red from crying, eyes filled with tears.

“You are three and eight days old here. A two hour effort and this was the best one we got,” Sansa retaliated. “And the minute the photographer left—”

“… I know, I know, I was perfectly quiet and just been peacefully looking at you for the rest of the night,” Catie groaned.

Margaery and Sansa shared a smile. They realized that both Catie and Sofia had memorised the stories to each of these pictures by heart, but loved hearing them nonetheless. Always coming up with new questions and comments, and always listening as closely as they had the first time.

The first time had been nearly two years ago; after they had confronted their daughters with all they had discovered on Catie’s tablet. All the pictures that documented the first two years of the girls’ lives, the years they had spent together as a family. All the emails that proved that the girls had already known about their prior connection, when they had met on board the ship.

It had been a _long_ talk. Sansa and Margaery trying to understand why they had kept this from them, Catie and Sofia trying to understand the same.

Having all those pictures, had turned out to be helpful in filling the gaps of what the girls didn’t know -hadn’t figured out- about their lives together. By the end of the night, close to midnight already, all four of them had been cuddled up in the bed, Catie and Sofia sandwiched between their mothers and they had looked at just these pictures together, and their mothers had told them the story to go with every one. Their story.

It had become their tradition after that.

They had done this at the end of each their other vacations, and when they had visited each other in King’s Landing and Winterfell for the first time. Always concluding the time they spent together and always adding new pictures.

In a way, tonight was the first time they broke that tradition, because this night wasn’t the end of anything.

It was the first night in their new house. The start of their lives together.

There were a good two hundred pictures in the slide show at this point, and it took them over two hours to get through all of them. It was the same image as always that concluded the slide show. Taken on the last morning of the vacation on-board that had brought them back together. All of them around the breakfast table, looking a bit tired, but smiling brightly nevertheless.

Tonight, despite the familiar image, Sansa dropped the remote she'd been holding, simultaneously feeling Margaery’s hand tightening its hold on her.

Four simple words at the bottom of the image.

_Will you marry me?_

Sansa swallowed. Knew her answer even before her head shot around to Margaery who was looking at her with a face splitting smile.

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

They had said it almost at the same time. Sansa the fraction of a second earlier than Margaery.

It took a couple of seconds more for comprehension to set in, for bright smiles to flatter and dissolve into confused expressions.

“I thought you—”

“Didn’t you—”

Again they spoke simultaneously. And then, again at the same time, it dawned on them, when they saw two smug little faces smile up at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! I would loooove to hear what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> So...? Any thoughts? :) 
> 
> Would love to hear what you think about this plot bunny, that came to me when I tried to find inspiration for RFTA. (Which, by the way, I am still actively working on.)
> 
> I have an epilogue in the works that still needs a bit of tweaking, but will be ready within the next couple of days!


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